I’ll have to stipulate right up front that I have not watched a single nano-second of the “Duck Dynasty” TV series. All I really know about this family is what I’ve read.

Lately, it’s been a lot and most of it has been about Phil Robertson, the 67-year-old patriarch of the Louisiana family that apparently likes to go huntin’ and fishin’ … a lot.

With that said, I have read about the GQ article in which Daddy Phil was asked what he considers to be “sinful.”

He said: “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.”

For that and some other things he said along those lines he has been suspended from his A&E TV network show. The family, I guess, will continue on without dear old dad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/phil-robertsons-suspension-from-duck-dynasty-sends-fans-rallying-to-his-side/2013/12/19/eb1c427e-68f8-11e3-997b-9213b17dac97_story.html

What do I think of the suspension and of the reaction from the gay community over what he said?

I accept that he is a deeply religious man, a devout Christian who adheres to Scriptures’ teaching that sex should only be between married partners, and that marriage should only involve a man and a woman. He believes it as an article of his faith.

That is where I believe he bases his comments. I read more later of what he said and I do not interpret what he said as being “anti-gay.” As a straight man, perhaps I do not quite have the same sensitivity to perceived anti-gay slurs as a gay individual.

What is more troubling to me, though, has been the reaction from supposedly “progressive” groups who on most days promote the notion of tolerance and diversity. I’m totally fine with that. What is striking is that they are quite intolerant of the views of a man whose devotion to Christianity apparently is well-known around the nation.

A magazine interviewer asked him what he considered to be “sinful,” and he answered from his heart. He said homosexuality is a sin, according to Scripture. Did he equate homosexuality with bestiality and adultery? Only in the sense that Scripture tells him that all sins are equal in God’s eyes.

That’s what I got out of it.

Maybe someone should ask the GQ reporter what he intended with the question. Was it of the “gotcha” variety? If it was, then ol’ Phil got “got.”

The Washington Post talked to an openly gay Christian, Brandon Ambrosino, who doesn’t think Robertson should have been suspended. Ambrosino told the Post, “Whether or not I think his understanding of desire is primitive and brute, there are lot of people in America who hold his opinion. Dismissing an idea is not engaging a debate; that is not even entering into one.”

None of this has piqued my interest in “Duck Dynasty.” I do hope, though, that A&E reinstates the old fella.