Cross Posted from Crooks and Liars
Sarah Palin took to her Facebook page to defend the Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, after he was placed on indefinite leave by A&E for his homophobic words, on the grounds that our free speech is endangered.
Free speech is an endangered species. Those “intolerants” hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.
Here's what he said about the gays:
In the GQ interview, Robertson goes on record with comments about the sinfulness of gays and black people under Jim Crow. In the profile, an unedited Robertson sounds off on what's ailing the country during a trip through the Louisiana backwoods.
"Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men," he tells reporter Drew Magary. "Don't be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won't inherit the kingdom of God. Don't deceive yourself. It's not right."
He also muses about his own sexual orientation: "It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man's anus. That's just me. I'm just thinking: There's more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I'm saying? But hey, sin: It's not logical, my man. It's just not logical."
And as Jamie wrote, he also made a claim that African Americans were better off in the pre-civil rights era:
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy?
Sarah Palin isn't offended by those words at all because in her mind people should be able to say anything they want, anywhere without retribution. It's not surprising that she knows so little about 'freedom of speech' and what it means, (maybe we can get Katie Couric to ask her about it).
But if we go by her own understanding of it, why didn't she defend Martin Bashir over his callous words about her --which caused a conservative outrage and then led him to resign his job at MSNBC? She wallowed in his ridiculous words to her and bathed in the conservative backlash politics that ensued.
Did she say that Bashir was entitled to say anything he wants on MSNBC's airwaves, even attacking her? After all, it was his personal opinion that he voiced. Nope. Did she then go on and debate Bashir over what prompted him to say those things about her? Nope. So it's OK for anti-gay and and pro-Jim Crow words to be uttered by Robertson, but not anti-Palin words.
It's very typical of conservatives like Sarah Palin that their understanding of politics only extends as far as the last Facebook entry they made.
NFTOS
STAFF WRITER
