The controversy over the comments made by Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson about gays
and blacks has me thinking about free speech and freedom of religion in the US.
I’m grateful to live in a country where we can express our opinions and
religious beliefs openly without fear of persecution. But, does being
reprimanded by one’s employer for making controversial remarks about certain
groups of people amount to persecution?
History in
the US has shown us that people in the media can get fired for making comments
that hurt the image of their employers, even if those comments are based in
religious opinion. Celebrities, professional athletes, comedians, and talk show
hosts are often reprimanded or canned after making controversial remarks
because their employers depend on advertising contracts to make a profit…and
advertisers hate controversy. It’s not good for business. Mr. Robertson is an
actor on a reality TV show (Duck Dynasty
is not a documentary; its purpose is to entertain, not inform), thus he is an
employee of the media. The network that hosts his show believes his remarks
will have negative backlash, hurting network ratings and causing loss of
advertising revenue. Thus, Mr. Robertson was put on “hiatus” as a way to
placate parties potentially offended by his remarks in GQ.
Think of it this way: If I work for
the hypothetical Acme Incorporated, and they value X, and I devalue X in a
widely public forum, and that hurts Acme’s business, then doesn’t Acme have the
right to reprimand or fire me, even if I claim my opinions are based in my
religious beliefs? Doesn’t Acme have the right to retain employees that promote
their values and terminate employees who don’t? After all, corporations are
people, right? And corporations have rights, correct?
In Mr. Robertson’s particular case,
I think it’s important to consider the source. I do not know this man
personally, but I gather from what little I do know of the show that he is not
a highly educated man with a broad world view. I do not intend to demean his
life experience. We are all products of our times and our cultures. A person
who has spent most of his or her life in a small town or village, surrounded by
like-minded people who look and act much like each other, will likely not have
a broad world view, even if they and their family are suddenly thrust onto the world
stage thanks to a quirky reality TV show that centers on them. Thus, when asked
about people and issues with which they have little personal experience, they
will naturally respond from their own limited perspective. Ask me how to
effectively hunt for ducks in the swamps of Louisiana, and you will get a
response that will make any mildly seasoned duck hunter anywhere in the world
laugh out loud or cringe in disbelief.
So when political figures and other
people get their knickers in a twist because Mr. Robertson’s religious and free
speech rights have been violated, they need to remember that Mr. Robertson is
an employee of the A&E network, and as an employee, he should respect the
values of his employer and think carefully about what he’s saying, how he’s
saying it, and to whom he says it. Should Mr. Robertson be denied employment
because he personally believes that homosexuality leads to bestiality, and
blacks in Louisiana didn’t suffer from racial discrimination? Absolutely not.
But should he be reprimanded by his employer for speaking his mind in a public
forum such as GQ magazine and
potentially hurting his employer’s business? Absolutely!
Everyone is entitled to their
opinions, no matter how ill-informed those opinions may be. However, when we use words from texts—the Bible,
the Constitution, Shakespeare, whatever—we have a moral and ethical
responsibility to consider the historical, cultural, and linguistic contexts of
those words, and not just their literal, face-value meaning. As a
self-proclaimed Christian, Mr. Robertson most likely bases his opinions about
homosexuality on words taken from the Bible. But the majority of modern Bible
scholars today agree that the Christian Bible does not condemn same-sex
relationships as we understand them in the US and other developed countries.
And more and more mainstream Christian theologians are coming to not only
accept same-sex partnerships, but celebrate the love and commitment that two
people of the same gender can demonstrate to each other.
Of course not everyone in
Christendom agrees with these enlightened Christians. Many Jews, Muslims,
agnostics, and atheists don’t, either. This is the United States, and we have
the freedom to disagree based on our personal convictions. But what we don’t have the right to do as Americans
is to deny other Americans their rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because of our personal opinions or beliefs, even if those are rooted in
deeply held religious convictions. America is a democracy, not a theocracy.
An American can be opposed to same-sex relationships—or interracial,
interfaith, or May-December relationships, for that matter—and still coexist
with Americans who hold opposing viewpoints. That’s one of the great
characteristics of this country. Pacifists and warmongers, conservatives and
liberals, Christians and non-Christians, capitalists and socialists—there is
room for all of us here as long as we agree to disagree peacefully, kindly, and
respectfully. Perhaps the tension held between our opposing viewpoints actually
creates the common ground we all live on. Let’s just not let the ground give
way beneath our feet and go tumbling down the banks of cultural entrenchment.
Our diversity is what makes us strong, but we can’t embrace that diversity if
all we can see are the walls of our own narrow worlds.
