Look! Up in the sky! It's a plane: Phil Robertson

We all know that Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson is an anti-gay religious loon, right? But, hey, he's trying to reach out to The Gays with a bit of advice ... on how not to be gay.

During a prayer breakfast speech last week, Robertson told men who are, ahem, “shacked up” with their girlfriends to get married and “have it, she’s yours then.”

Then he offered that same advice to men in same-sex relationships:

"Call the dude, find you a woman and marry her. ... You’re not in a trap you can’t get out of, come on! Marry a woman."

I'm not sure which 'dude' to call. Is there just one dude that has all the women folk and he's the one I need to see to get me outta this gay trap?

I Didn't Say It ...

Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, waving the white flag on marriage equality:

"Let’s face it, anybody who does not believe that gay marriage is going to be the law of the land just hasn’t been observing what’s going on. There is a question whether [the courts] should be able to tell the states what they can or cannot do with something as important as marriage, but the trend right now in the courts is to permit gay marriage and anybody who doesn’t admit that just isn’t living in the real world. We have an excellent federal bench [in Utah]. Other federal judges down there might not have arrived at the same conclusion that these two have. But I think it’s a portent of the future that sooner or later gay marriage is probably going to be approved by the Supreme Court of the United States, certainly as the people in this country move towards it, especially young people. I don’t think that’s the right way to go; on the other hand, I do accept whatever the courts say."

Of course, he wants y’all, and his constituents to know, that he doesn’t like it, he just knows it going to happen.

Nasir Fleming, on being crowned homecoming queen at Danbury High School:

"My main reason for wanting to win prom queen is to show the school, and hopefully the world, that if a spunky, odd gay kid can win prom queen, then anyone can! This message is mainly for transgendered people, because they seem to face so much backlash for simply being themselves. If I can win a title that is out of my gender, anyone else should be able to, including transgendered people.”

I called him a hero earlier this week and that still stands.

Frank Bruni, on The Gay Kiss:

"A kiss is nothing. On the sidewalks, in the park, I see one every few minutes, a real kiss, lip to lip. It barely registers. It’s as unremarkable as a car horn in traffic, as an umbrella in rain. And yet a kiss is everything. A kiss can stop the world. The football player Michael Sam recently demonstrated as much.  … I still sometimes feel panic when my partner, meeting me in a restaurant, gives me a perfunctory kiss on the lips. And yet I feel robbed — wronged — if I sense that an awareness of other people’s gazes and a fear of their judgment are preventing him from doing that. We shouldn’t be bound that way, and on the day of the pro football draft, in front of the cameras, Sam rightly declared that he wasn’t. He did so with a gesture at once humdrum and heroic, a gesture that connects everyone who has been in love and affirms what every love shares: physical tenderness, eye-to-eye togetherness. It was something to behold. It was something to hold on to."

It’s just a kiss, y’all.

RuPaul, on using the word ‘Tranny':

"Does the word ‘tranny’ bother me? No. I love the word ‘tranny.’ … It’s not the transexual community who’s saying that. These are fringe people who are looking for storylines to strengthen their identity as victims. That is what we are dealing with. It’s not the trans community. ‘Cause most people who are trans have been through hell and high water… But some people haven’t and they’ve used their victimhood to create a situation where, ‘No! You look at me! I want you to see me the way you’re supposed to see me!’ You know, if your idea of happiness has to do with someone else changing what they say, what they do, you are in for a fucking hard-ass road… I dance to the beat of a different drummer. I believe everybody — you can be whatever the hell you wanna be, I ain’t stopping you. But don’t you dare tell me what I can do or what I can’t — say or can’t do. It’s just words, like, ‘Yeah, you hurt me!’ Bitch, you need to get stronger. If you’re upset by something I said you have bigger problems than you think.”

Much as I love Ru, she needs to stop and think.

If using that word offends the transgender community then you stop using that word. Stop.

Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty, giving an Easter Sunday sermon juts filled with hate:

"They were mad at me…You say, why’d they get mad at you? Cuz instead of acknowledging their sin, like you had better do, they railed against me for giving them the truth about their sins. Don’t deceive yourselves. You want the verse? The news media didn’t even know it was a verse! They thought I was just mouthing off. Is homosexual behavior a sin? The guy asked me. I said, ‘do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?’ Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

STFU.

Mark Ruffalo, on his hesitancy to accept a role in HBO’s The Normal Heart because he’s a straight actor:

“I'd heard about [director Ryan Murphy] and I was a little nervous about saying no without at least speaking to him, giving him the respect that he deserves. We met, and my thinking at the time was, ‘Aren't we at the place in our culture, in our development, where a gay man should be playing this part?’ That was kind of a concern for me. Politically speaking, it felt like that was the right thing for this play and for this movie at this time. And Ryan said, very clearly, ‘That's the antithesis of what this movie is about. It doesn't matter what your sexual preference is. It matters what actor I think should play this part.’”

If that’s the case, then all straight roles should go to straight actors? No, it’s about whom can best fulfill the vision the director has in mind, and I think Ruffalo was a fabulous choice.

“Dr.” Robi Ludwig, a reality TV psychotherapist, on how Santa Barbara mass murderer Elliot Rodger may have gone on the rampage because he couldn’t cope with his “homosexual impulses”:

 “When I was first listening to him, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s angry with women for rejecting him. And then I started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses? Was he angry with women because they were taking away men from him? But this is a kid who couldn’t connect, and felt enraged, and wanted to obliterate anyone that made him feel like a nothing.”

Go back to playing a doctor on TV because you have no basis in reality. Charlatan.

“Dr.” Robi Ludwig, reality TV psychotherapist, backtracking on her crazy:

“I was misunderstood on @FoxNews this weekend, when I was asked to hypothesize several factors which could have triggered ‪#‎ElliotRoger's spree killing. I in NO way meant to indicate being a homosexual or having homosexual impulses is a cause for spree killing.”

Funny, cuz it’s kinda what you said.

Charlie Dent, Republican Pennsylvania Representative, coming out for marriage equality:

"Life is too short to have the force of government stand in the way of two adults whose pursuit of happiness includes marriage. [In] conversations with my family, I have come to realize that they already see the world through that lens. As a Republican, I value equality, personal freedom and a more limited role for government in our lives. I believe this philosophy should apply to the issue of marriage as well."

Funny he didn’t feel that way when it seemed like marriage equality would never happen in his state.

Color my cynical, but I feel he’s climbed aboard the bandwagon after-the-fact to make himself look better. He doesn’t.

Jim Carrey, giving the commencement speech at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa:

“The decisions we make in this moment are based in either love or fear. So many of us chose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect so we never ask the universe for it. I’m saying I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it. And if it doesn’t happen for you right away, it’s only because the universe is so busy fulfilling my order.”

It never hurts to ask.

Maya Angelou, in 2009, asking New York state senators to support marriage equality.

 “I would ask every man and every woman who’s had the blessing of having children, ‘Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?’ To love someone takes a lot of courage. So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?”

RIP

Great lady.

My Two-Cents On ... Phil Robertson

I’ve never seen ‘Duck Dynasty’ before so Phil Robertson is new to me; and now he’s news to me. But, as you all know by now, Phil gave an interview in the January issue of GQ in which he says some awful things about The Gays, and now The Gays and The Gay Friendlies are up in arms while the conservatives and the Mama Grizzly Bores™ are standing behind the guy with the beard — and no, not Santa this time.

It all began with this:

“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. 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.”

Okay, it’s the typical wingnut not-so-straight line of thinking that homosexuality leads to bestiality and adultery and all kinds of sins. We’ve heard that before; it’s nothing the new. It’s the same argument these types of so-called ‘Christians’ have been hurling at us for years and years.

I’m not so much offended by it as I am mystified that people are still spewing this lunacy, but then Phil dives in … to the vagina:

“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.”

Okay, again I am not offended. Phil doesn’t like the anus, but he’s a great cheerleader for the vagina. Good for him; but there are some for whom the vagina is not the playground for, and some for whom the anus is No Man’s Land. Again, I’m not offended by what he said; it’s what he thinks and he has a right to say what he wants.

Now, there are some who say he has no right to say these things in “the public square’ like in a magazine, but last time I checked there weren’t limits on Free Speech. It’s not Free in your own home, and less Free in a magazine; there aren’t levels of Free Speech; it’s Free.

But, odd as it seems, Free does come with a cost, and the cost for Phil Robertson is that the A&E network, which airs ‘Duck Dynasty’ has suspended him; not fired him, but given him a bit of a time-out. And that’s the cost of Free Speech; he’s not out of a job, he’s, well, to paraphrase Ross to Rachel, on a break:

"We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson's comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series 'Duck Dynasty'. His personal views in no way reflect those of A&E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely."

I don’t like what he said, in fact I hate it. It’s disgusting, demeaning, nasty, vile and hate-filled, but it’s his right to have that opinion. Just as it is my right to say that Phil Robertson is what’s wrong with so-called Christians who use their mouths to spew hate and then try to hide it under the guise of the Bible. And I am allowed to say 'Thank You A&E' for suspending Phil Robertson indefinitely for what he said because if you didn’t, well then I might think you agree with Phil Robertson and I might begin watching less of you and more of someone else.

And before anyone tries to compare Phil Robertson statements to shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater, let me remind you that no Gays were harmed, physically, by what he said. So it’s not the same thing.

He said what he felt, and what he has a right to say, while I say what I fell and have a right to say. Phil Robertson, to me, is the furthest thing from a Christian. Phil Robertson is judging, and there’s that whole ‘Judge not’ business in the Bible. Phil Robertson is talking about The Gays and the sin of being gay but all sin is equal in the eyes of God. So if being gay is a sin — and naturally I disagree with Phil and many others on that — then being a judgmental moron hiding behind a camouflage jacket and the Bible so he can spew my illiterate raciest and homophobe BS is an equal sin.

And Phil Robertson should check himself before casting the first stone next time.

If he gets a next time.