Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

By now, if you haven't been living under a rock, you've heard of A&E's decision to suspend the highly popular Phil Robertson from his own show, Duck Dynasty, after an interview he did with GQ disclosed some culturally unsavory words about homosexuality. Inevitably, the episode displays the hypocrisy of Tolerance as a virtue–especially when those espousing Tolerance end up using it at a bloodletting device. But for now, two voices from within evangelicalism have nicely captured the essence of this most controversial debate. According to Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 

So, even as most evangelical Christians will likely have concerns about the way Phil Robertson expressed himself in some of his comments and where he made the comments, the fact remains that it is the moral judgment he asserted, not the manner of his assertion, that caused such an uproar. A quick look at the protests from gay activist groups like GLAAD will confirm that judgment. They have protested the words Robertson drew from the Bible and labeled them as “far outside of the mainstream understanding of LGBT people.” So the controversy over Duck Dynasty sends a clear signal to anyone who has anything to risk in public life: Say nothing about the sinfulness of homosexual acts or risk sure and certain destruction by the revolutionaries of the new morality. You have been warned.

Secondly, the words of ERLC President Russell Moore, went viral:

A generation ago, preachy censors wanted the Beatles and Elvis Presley off the air because they were too “subversive” to be heard. We roll our eyes at such now. And that was when there were only three or four television options. Now, I’m not sure I could find Duck Dynasty on television in quicker than ten minutes because A&E is situated among hundreds of cable options. If I don’t like that he’s gutting a deer in front of his granddaughters, I can turn the channel. If I don’t like that he goes to a church with a different view of baptism than mine, then I can go on the Internet and say why I think he’s wrong. And if you don’t like his religious views on sexuality (views held also by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and evangelicals as well as by many Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and the Dalai Lama), you’re free to say why you think he’s wrong. And you’re free to change the channel.