GQ sends us emails as soon as they release their biggest stories online, and when CB and I received this GQ email this morning, both of us read the article outtakes with our mouths hanging open. To be fair, neither CB or I watch Duck Dynasty. I know people who love the show and think it’s the best reality show ever, and their ratings are through the roof and now all of the Duck Dynasty people are getting widespread coverage, like Us Weekly covers and network interviews. And before today, I never realized just how… conservative they are. So, kudos to GQ for getting Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson on the record about all of his beliefs, because seriously, OMG OMG OMG OMG. You can read the full GQ piece here. I’m just going to let Phil speak for himself (which seems to be what GQ did too):
Phil Robertson on his family and their faith:
“We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television… You put in your article that the Robertson family really believes strongly that if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off. We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.”
Phil on sin:
“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong… Sin becomes fine… 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 says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “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.. 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.”
On his violent past:
During Phil’s darkest days, in the early 1970s, he had to flee the state of Arkansas after he badly beat up a bar owner and the guy’s wife. Kay Robertson persuaded the bar owner not to press charges in exchange for most of the Robertsons’ life savings. (“A hefty price,” he notes in his memoir.) I ask Phil if he ever repented for that, as he wants America to repent—if he ever tracked down the bar owner and his wife to apologize for the assault. He shakes his head. “I didn’t dredge anything back up. I just put it behind me.” As far as Phil is concerned, he was literally born again. Old Phil—the guy with the booze and the pills—died a long time ago, and New Phil sees no need to apologize for him: “We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”
On the future of the show:
“Let’s face it,” he says. “Three, four, five years, we’re out of here. You know what I’m saying? It’s a TV show. This thing ain’t gonna last forever. No way.”
On sacrificing their privacy in order to spread the good word:
“For the sake of the Gospel, it was worth it… All you have to do is look at any society where there is no Jesus. I’ll give you four: Nazis, no Jesus. Look at their record. Uh, Shintos? They started this thing in Pearl Harbor. Any Jesus among them? None. Communists? None. Islamists? Zero. That’s eighty years of ideologies that have popped up where no Jesus was allowed among those four groups. Just look at the records as far as murder goes among those four groups.”
On why he voted Romney in 2012:
“If I’m lost at three o’clock in a major metropolitan area…I ask myself: Where would I rather be trying to walk with my wife and children? One of the guys who’s running for president is out of Chicago, Illinois, and the other one is from Salt Lake City, Utah. [Editor’s note: Romney is from Boston, not Salt Lake City.] Where would I rather be turned around at three o’clock in the morning? I opted for Salt Lake City. I think it would be safer.”
On growing up in pre-civil-rights-era Louisiana:
“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? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
OOOOOOOOOOO.
So… that just happened. You know what? I live in the South, and I do think I have a higher tolerance for these kinds of statements and belief systems. All I can really say in defense of Duck Dynasty Phil is that he doesn’t seem to be saying that all of the adulterers and homosexuals and drunks need to be “dealt with” in real time. Now… that being said, JESUS CHRIST THIS IS OFFENSIVE. The further South you go, the more often you’ll encounter preachers and fundamentalists who really get into the nitty-gritty of why they think homosexuality is wrong, and they have a giant list of all the people who are going to hell in a handbasket, and this just seems to be Phil reiterating what he likely hears in church.
I don’t even have the energy to yell about the other crap. I’m genuinely offended by the “societies without Jesus” rant and his “civil rights hurt black people” thesis. For the love of… ducks.
Photos courtesy of Jeff Reidel/GQ, WENN.
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