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"The Robertson clan en masse released a statement last night in support of anti-gay patriarch Phil, following his &amp;quot;indefinite&amp;quot; suspension from filming Duck Dynasty. They imply they&amp;#039;d rather give up the show altogether than film as an incomplete family, and are &amp;quot;in discussions&amp;quot; with A&amp;amp;amp;E network executives. Here it is in full: &amp;quot;We want to thank all of you for your prayers and support. The family has spent much time in prayer since learning of A&amp;amp;amp;E&amp;#039;s decision. We want you to know that first and foremost we are a family rooted in our faith in God and our belief that the Bible is His word. While some of Phil&amp;#039;s unfiltered comments to the reporter were coarse, his beliefs are grounded in the teachings of the Bible. Phil is a Godly man who follows what the Bible says are the greatest commandments: &amp;quot;Love the Lord your God with all your heart&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Love your neighbor as yourself.&amp;quot; Phil would never incite or encourage hate.We are disappointed that Phil has been placed on hiatus for expressing his faith, which is his constitutionally protected right. We have had a successful working relationship with A&amp;amp;amp;E but, as a family, we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm. We are in discussions with A&amp;amp;amp;E to see what that means for the future of Duck Dynasty. Again, thank you for your continued support of our family.&amp;quot;  Meanwhile, a new recording released from a sermon of sorts Robertson gave during a 2010 service at the Berean Bible Church in Pennsylvania suggests he&amp;#039;s not always held that &amp;quot;love your neighbor&amp;quot; commandment close to heart. It also flies directly in the face of the family&amp;#039;s assertion that he&amp;#039;d never &amp;quot;incite or encourage hate,&amp;quot; because the 9 minute video (uploaded by the church) is full of just that: hate. And not the kind of hate that can be explained away as off-the-cuff comments make to a gotcha journalist, either. Robertson describes &amp;quot;gross sexual immorality&amp;quot; on the part of the LGBT community, and says gays and lesbians &amp;quot;dishonor their bodies with one another, degrade each other.&amp;quot; Now this one time my boyfriend told me I&amp;#039;d gained some weight which I felt was a bit degrading for a second, but then I decided it was tough love and dragged my fat ass to the gym. Really, the only time I feel degraded as a gay man is when I have to sit through bigoted bullshit like this \u2014 and that makes me pretty lucky in the grand discriminatory scheme of things, I should add. Anyway, Robertson then continues: &amp;quot;Women with women, men with men, they committed indecent acts with one another and they received in themselves the due penancey for their perversions. They&amp;#039;re full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, god haters, they are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless, they invent ways of doing evil.&amp;quot; He concludes his hateful rant by asking the congregation, &amp;quot;what are you going to do, you&amp;#039;re going to just run with them?&amp;quot; The implication that no, you need to be running against &amp;quot;them&amp;quot; is clear. And that&amp;#039;s not inciteful how? In a disgustingly hypocritical 180, Robertson then discusses the right to live free and touts the &amp;quot;pursuit of happiness,&amp;quot; which obviously doesn&amp;#039;t apply to the LGBT community in his mind. His behavior is awful and really not the sort anyone should choose to support. I have argued that A&amp;amp;amp;E shouldn&amp;#039;t have suspended Robertson in part because it allows the tea party set to turn the controversy into one about freedom of speech, and I&amp;#039;m standing by that. A&amp;amp;amp;E&amp;#039;s trigger-happy decision to fire Robertson removes that element of choice \u2014 we can&amp;#039;t switch off when Roberton&amp;#039;s on screen to prove a point, because he&amp;#039;s not there at all. (Also, considering how quickly Robertson started spouting his beliefs to GQ&amp;#039;s reporter, it&amp;#039;s hard to believe there aren&amp;#039;t similar moments caught on tape, but then left on the cutting room floor \u2014 which brings the network&amp;#039;s motives into question somewhat.) Now, he and his family have control the narrative and the fall-out, meaning they can paint themselves as the victims, their &amp;quot;constitutionally protected rights&amp;quot; trampled upon. It&amp;#039;s self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, in that Phil can now chalk the likely cancellation of his show up to that awful (anal) radical gay agenda too.  Follow Alex on Twitter. Photo credit: courtesy of duckcommander.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a17340/more-duck-dynasty-bigotry/>