As someone who has experienced both Christianity and homosexuality, I can only conclude from these words of Phil Robertson in the recent GQ interview that the Duck Dynasty patriarch loves fags:
“We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television,” he tells me. “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.”
What does repentance entail? Well, in Robertson’s worldview, America was a country founded upon Christian values (Thou shalt not kill, etc.), and he believes that the gradual removal of Christian symbolism from public spaces has diluted those founding principles. (He and Si take turns going on about why the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed outside courthouses.) He sees the popularity of Duck Dynasty as a small corrective to all that we have lost.
“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.”
[Q.:] What, in your mind, is sinful?
“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.”
[Phil, in reference to his own conversion, elaborated:]
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?”
If you read the words above and conclude that Phil hates homosexuals, then you are either deceiving yourself or you are not fully comprehending what he's actually saying. You don't have to agree with Phil to recognize that he is actually expressing a kind of love for homosexuals. He's using standard Bible language here, talking about a quintessentially Biblical concept - salvation for sinners like himself.
One of the Bible-identified sins that Phil experienced was drunkenness and it begat other sins, such as violence and cruelty to his family. What he's saying here is that no matter what sins you engage in, you can repent and be saved. Phil is affirming the fundamental dignity of men and women who are, as he understands it, lost in the sinful practice of homosexuality.
This may be an understanding of homosexuality you disagree with or a theology that you disagree with, but it is not hate. The most precious thing Phil has ever experienced - the mercy of almighty God attained through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ - is something he wants to share with all of humanity. Phil loves you, he loves me, and he truly loves homosexuals to the best of his understanding.
As for Phil's "comparing" homosexuality with bestiality or terrorism, please note that he's also "comparing" it to the major sin he identifies in his own life, drunkenness. Those who are unfamiliar with Christian evangelicals or fundamentalists may be unaware of the concept of the "equality of sin" which is held by many of these kinds of Christians. It's the idea that "all fall short of the glory of God" and that accepting Christ can wipe away literally ALL sins.
If the worst thing you ever did was tell a white lie and answer a woman that her dress looks great when it actually looks awful, accepting Jesus into your heart wipes away all your sins. If the moment before the famous "double tap" in 2011, Osama bin Laden quickly prayed that Jesus come into his heart, all his sins were forgiven. To an evangelical or fundamentalist Christian, that's the free gift of salvation that Jesus Christ extends to all who seek repentance.
But you did not choose homosexuality, you say. Well, Phil probably says he did not choose alcoholism or addiction either. He probably has a hankering for a drink every now and then too. Very few evangelical or fundamentalist Christians would suggest that "being saved" eradicates the desire to sin.
I do think that many of these folks misunderstand same-sex attraction and think of it as a condition that can be switched on and off. I know someone who was baptized twice by a sect he belonged to briefly because the first time did not apparently "wash away" his sexual attraction to men. It didn't take the second time either and he moved on.
Maybe Phil is at a similar place in his concept of same-sex attraction as that sect. But I bet you a hundred ducks that if I sat down with Phil and spent 10 minutes explaining my experience of this thing, he would believe me at least that the orientation or attraction itself is not something I have it within my power to presently control, and that I bear greater responsibility for what I can control. He can choose to avoid alcohol and drugs if he wants to, so I think he would grasp that I can avoid pornography, masturbation, and sex with men (or women who aren't my wife) if I want to.
The fact is the Bible mostly identifies certain acts as sins, and much more rarely calls thoughts or inadvertent thought patterns sins.
In fact, while I can think of several places in the Bible where men are condemned for coveting or lusting for women, the passages I am familiar with dealing with homosexuality all only explicitly mention sex acts or people who commit certain sex acts. (If anyone reading this has an example counter to that assertion, please let me know and I'll correct my assertion or at least examine the competing example.)
Look at an extended version of the passage in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (I Cor. 6:9-11) that Phil paraphrased:
[9] Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders [10] nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. [11] And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The English phrasing and terminology employed in this passage (as well as the whole Bible) have varied across translations (from the original Greek in the case of the New Testament) since the Reformation, but judging by Phil's paraphrase in the GQ article, this older NIV (New International Version) translation seems to be what he's familiar with. Whether or not you like seeing homosexuals lumped in with the other people on the list, from a Bible perspective, take that for granted and consider what comes at the end in verse 11: "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." That's actually the point St. Paul is making and it's the point Phil was making in his own way.
Sadly, both sides - people who support the gay agenda and those who oppose it - most often quote verses 9 and 10, but rarely seem to follow through to verse 11. St. Paul here is not simply recasting Leviticus's condemnation of men lying with men as they do with women; Paul is saying that Christ has the ability to wipe out ALL our sins and set us on a new path if we let him.
To his mind, Phil was once a
drunk and drug addict (and a fornicator and a few other things on the
Corinthians list) who overcame those sins by accepting Christ. He was washed, he was
sanctified, and he genuinely wants every person he comes in contact with and
everyone who reads the article or watches his show to feel that same
joy.
Phil does not hate anyone for experiencing same-sex attraction or engaging in homosexual acts. He identifies with us, and to his mind he wants the absolute best for us.Phil Robertson does not hate fags. Phil Robertson loves fags.
