... apparently there's some controversy brewing about a character on the new Dynasty show (side note: I like to think that I'm up to date on pop culture ... and although I knew they remade Dallas on TNT, I had *no* idea they resurrected Dynasty on A&E). From all the brouhaha, I'm assuming that this Phil Robertson guy must interact with Steven Carrington in some crucial story lines or something. I'm pretty sure it's all going to culminate with the two of them watching a slap fest between Linda Evans and Joan Collins in a lily pool filled with rubber duckies ... or maybe that's just an SNL skit waiting to be written (Lorne Michaels ... call me?).
Wait ... wait ... can we take that whole first paragraph and just "bobby-in-the-shower" it (speaking of Dallas) ... because my mash-up of Duck Dynasty and Dynasty was really just a fever dream. I am fully aware that, in a GQ interview, patriarch Phil was espousing Santorum style "homosexual acts are the gateway behaviors to bestiality" (which in turn makes me wonder if, after he's done contributing to a generation's duck-o-cide [about which no one seems to be concerned], he might not have presidential aspirations [or that his last name may tie him to a certain Pat Roberts, who has a record of some pretty wild statements]). Oh ... and I also know that his employer decided to suspend him for his comments (and/or coordinated this whole spectacle to boost ratings ... a new seasons starts in two weeks)!
In of itself, that action taken by A&E happens to be very trendy, coming on the heels of a year that saw Paula Deen n-tangled with the n-word, and Alec Baldwin bumped off the air for using the f word (the three, not four, letter one), and Martin Bashir fired for somehow tying together one of the best scenes in The Help with Sarah Palin's menu options (Miss Palin, you beware Octavia Spencer showing up at your door in Alaska gifting you with pies this holiday season, now, you hear?). By the time this is all said and done, it could be that all of them will be in the free speech hall of fame, next to Gilbert Gottfried (for his lack of sensitivity to tsunami victims that ended up robbing a nation of his melodious "aflac" squawks) ... and Bill Maher (for his classification of Mohammed Atta as being less cowardly than the mighty US military) ... and grand dame of free speech Jane Fonda (rumor has it she was against a war a few decades ago for which some have never forgiven her, hence her loss of a QVC gig just a few years ago).
See -- that's the hard part. I have a sneaking suspicion that those standing up for Phil's "right" to disclose that "vaginas have more to offer guys than anuses" may not be as quick to place him in a pantheon that includes Bill Maher and Jane Fonda ... unless the standard is "free speech is fundamental (so long as I agree with what is being said)", as I suspect it might be.
Of course, all the free speech associations aside, this seems to be more about employer-employee relations ... and HR nightmares ... and the fact that A&E as a TV network has a pedigree in representing Arts and Entertainment ... fields where it is very well established that vaginas do not sit at the top of the food chain (so to speak). The faux shock and surprise that an employer might need to take action to protect itself against what an employee says seems disingenuous, just as much as the newly carved out constitutional right to be on reality TV seems to be a bit of a stretch in evaluating those conflating the issue.
Speaking of conflated issues ... there's a contingent in this debate that still feels it necessary to ignore the new commandment of Jesus in the New Testament to "love one another" because they want to exact the Old Testament wrath of God for those who violate strict instructions laid out in detail in books like Leviticus. (Were I the interviewer at GQ, I would have followed up the bestiality reference with a question about how careful Phil is to uphold God's laws regarding Miss Kay's menstrual cycle [or was ... if she's already gone through the change] ... just so I could get a sense of whether this was the all too typical selective-Scripture syndrome.)
By the way, my sincerest hope is that there is a special place heaven-adjacent for those who twist the word of God to contribute in any way, however small, to bigotry and hatred, so that they can eternally pine after where they should have ended up had they not been so overly zealous in their professed piety as if they were chosen to speak for the Holy. There's precedent ... we can call it the Moses suite ... for how God reacted to Moses' tendency to get too big for his tunic and act all self-righteous multiple times, for which he was banned from setting foot inside the promised land. [That's the dangerous thing about the Bible ... or the Torah ... or the Koran ... so much of it is interpretation, and it's awfully bold for someone to claim that they alone have the one true meaning of it -- absolute truth and blasphemy can be two sides of the same piece of silver. (For instance ... shall we stay with the Old Testament and talk about the "special" relationships shared by Ruth and Naomi or David and Adjonijah? Had enough? Maybe some other rant some other day?)]
How to conclude today's soapbox session? Maybe with a little encouragement for all sides to consider the value in the lives of everyone -- including those not like themselves they their tiny minds can't understand ... so how's about a little 1 Thessalonians 3:12 ... "Any may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all". Boy, we would live in a different world then ... and that would make a happy holidays indeed.
MY GOD IS A GOD OF LOVE:
http://www.openbible.info/topics/love_one_another
MY SOURCE FOR THE GQ QUOTE:
http://americanlivewire.com/2013-12-19-duck-dynasty-phil-robertson/
TOO YOUNG TO GET THE DYNASTY REFERENCES?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty_(TV_series)
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