Still trucking along approaching
four decades, earlier
this year the organization inked a new sponsor in the form of the Robertson
family’s Duck Commander hunting supply business based in West Monroe, which is
featured as part of a reality television show. This came not too long after the
founder of the company, Phil Robertson, made some controversial
remarks. In essence, he asserted that blacks were happy before the civil
rights movement in the 1960s and that homosexual behavior was sinful. Since then,
he has reiterated in public several times his belief in the sinful nature of
homosexual behavior.
This seemed to be too much for
Shreveport’s People Acting for Change
and Equality, whose spokeswoman mused publicly whether the Bowl having
Duck Commander as its title sponsor (the contract is through 2019) was for the best. PACE
lobbies for increased legalization of aspects related to homosexual behavior,
such as supporting same sex marriage.
That sentiment betrays a
fascinating yet disturbing viewpoint. No doubt that in asking a number of
Robertson’s black contemporaries few would agree with his observation that they
seemed all right with a life containing the restricted economic, political, and
social choices of a half-century ago. But that only makes Robertson boorish on
the topic of empathizing with black people, not hatefully prejudiced against
people with a certain genetic trait.
His comments on homosexual
behavior, by contrast, were condemnatory of it, and drew approbation from
groups that do not see it as sinful. However, Robertson has the right to the
opinion that it is illogical and immoral, simply because moral questions revolve
around people doing the right thing, the content of which is disputed. Some
fundamentalist Mormons, for example, argue it is moral for a man to have multiple
wives, against the grain of practically every Christian sect, even as it is
prohibited by law everywhere in this country.
Robertson, in line with general
Christian doctrine, has stated numerous times that we are called to love the
sinner while hating the sin. Sin, of course, occurs by taking actions that stem
from attitudes – keeping in mind that to identify as homosexual is a reflection
of attitudes that lead to behavior and has no genetic component. There’s no
evidence that he ever has ever preached that just because somebody acts
homosexually that he should be persecuted and not respected as a human being,
or that he has acted that way
Yet for years now lobbies like
PACE have tried to engineer thinking about this issue to create the belief that
refusing acceptance of homosexual behavior, relative to government’s interest
in regulating morality and its sponsorship of that lifestyle, is the actual
prejudice. For them, unjustified discriminatory behavior need not be demonstrated;
to be a “bigot” merely needs evidence of the “thoughtcrime.” In other words,
simple disagreement with their view makes one not only prejudiced, but in
necessity of sanctions if not reeducation.
The irony, of course, is that, if
anything, Robertson’s (and the vast majority of Christians, Jews, and Muslims) view
that homosexual behavior is deviant and abnormal, and thus should not be privileged
as a matter of public policy, is the better argument than the view it is not.
After all, if homosexual behavior were the norm and heterosexuality practiced
by the few, humans as a species never would have gotten off the ground. Given
this, in no way is it unreasonable therefore to think that what is deviant and
abnormal therefore is immoral.
However, it is the incredible conceit
of those that reject his argument that they believe they have a monopoly on
morality, and thereby want to suppress his witness and those with similar
beliefs, by arguing there is something “hateful” about such views. Worse, it
assigns legitimacy to the idea that doctrinaire orthodoxy need be enforced, at
the expense of basic human freedom.
If someone wants to boycott the
I-Bowl because the father of the guy who runs a company sponsoring it says he
considers certain behaviors sinful, knock yourself out. But to suggest that the
sponsorship somehow is inappropriate and by implication is wrong just because
of those remarks reveals a remarkable and distasteful intolerance embraced by
those complaining. And that degrades the quality of discourse in public
policy-making and the quality of the decisions thereby made.
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