To CCBPC

This is in response to this comment by CCBPC:

Just after the Japanese tsunami in 2011, Gilbert Godfried tweeted the following jokes:

I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, "They'll be another one floating by any minute now."

My Japanese doctor advised me that to stay healthy I need 50 million gallons of water a day.
What do Japanese Jews like to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.
What does every Japanese person have in their apartment? Flood lights.
I asked a girl in Japan to have sex with me. She said, "Ok, but you have to sleep in the wet spot."

His jokes were insensitive, crude, and in poor taste. He was fired as spokesman for AFLAC because his comments reflected poorly on his employer.

Jim Zumbo made statements that alienated the owners of the most popular rifle sold in America. He was fired by most of his employers for expressing that opinion.

What if Jack Hanna gave an interview in which he said that whales don't belong in captivity? Sea World would likely fire him the next day, and that would be their right.

Phil Robertson made a statement to the press that alienated many in the public. Just as any other person who makes a statement to the press, he must be prepared for the backlash when his employer decides that they no longer want to employ him. This is not a constitutional issue.

It wasn't just that he made anti-gay statements. He went after all of it: race, homosexuality, and others.He said this of Blacks: "I'm with the Blacks, because we're white trash." He also said that Blacks were happy during the days of segregation, and said that segregation was not mistreatment of Blacks.


When you are in the public eye, you have to watch what you say, or you may lose your job. Robertson can say what he wants, but A&E is within their rights to fire him if his words hurt their business. That is reality when you are in the public eye. If he were smart, he would have just said "no comment." Just because you have an opinion doesn't mean that you have to share it, and just because you have the right to free speech doesn't mean that you should speak, nor does it mean that your employer has to keep paying you.

No one is demanding that you Christians accept anything. They are demanding that you leave them alone to live their lives. Not everyone believes that there is an invisible man in the sky that runs our lives, but the rest of us tolerate your beliefs and expect you to do the same. To say that the Christian church has even pretended to play by the "live and let live" policy is laughable.

Asking you to refrain from screaming "faggot" at a gay couple for holding hands, and demanding that they have the same right to marriage that you are, is not forcing you to accept anything. Two men getting married or holding hands is none of your business, and doesn't hurt you a bit.

I will do the same to defend you from the homosexuals: I disagree that the Christian bakery should be forced to make a cake for a gay wedding.

To claim that homosexuality should be illegal because it does not result in procreation is absurd. I am sterile and cannot have children. Does that mean that I should be prohibited by law from having sex? How about post menopausal women? Should they be prohibited from getting married or having sex? After all, they cannot have children, either.

Boycott A&E all you want; it will have the same effect that your silly boycott against Disney over Gay Days has had: exactly none. In this country, you are free to be a hateful, religious fruitcake all you want: we are free to ignore you. Even if you are somehow able to resolve this situation, you are on the losing side on this one. In the end, homosexual marriage is going to happen, whether you like it or not. Just like interracial marriage did, over the same tired old objections from the same tired old church. Same song, different verse.

You want to know why the Republicans can't accomplish anything? This is why: The Republican obsession with treating people with scorn and hate because they are not like you is literally driving people to the Democrats and to the Libertarians. Every election that you lose is your own fault. I would rather have a gay neighbor than a Bible thumping, hate filled asshole for a neighbor any day, and I certainly don't want to elect a politician that thinks that it is just fine and dandy to legislate where I put my penis.

On top of that, Robertson is everything that I despise about stereotypical southerners: He is an uneducated, bigoted, redneck idiot. He makes all of us here in the South look bad, and validates every bad opinion that the northerners have of us. I, for one, do not mourn his firing.