The brouhaha over that Duck Dynasty guy losing one public forum to spew ignorance has really brought out the wacky (h/t BooMan):

Embattled “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson has been suspended from his show by A&E for his remarks about gays and African-Americans, and now some high-profile conservatives are rallying to his side and defending him. On Friday, GOP congressional candidate Ian Bayne went all in, comparing Robertson to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

“In December 1955, Rosa Parks took a stand against an unjust societal persecution of black people, and in December 2013, Robertson took a stand against persecution of Christians,” Bayne said in an email to supporters.

“What Parks did was courageous,” he added. “What Mr. Robertson did was courageous too.”

This is so beyond the realm of the merely stupid that it makes me sad.

The vast majority of the public’s focus seems to be on Phil Robertson’s comments about teh gayz, but to me he’s just another old white guy from the South using the Bible to justify his complete lack of comprehension of the lives of LGBTQ people. Yes, it’s bad, but old homophobic bigots are a dime a dozen these days.

I am far more miffed about Phil Robertson’s quaintly nostalgic take on the Jim Crow era:

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person,” Robertson is quoted in GQ. “Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

First, this is pretty much the conservative mantra: he didn’t personally see it, and/or it doesn’t affect him directly; therefore, it is not a serious problem.

I don’t know if Phil Robertson has any particular opinions about Rosa Parks. One can’t say for certain if he applies his rosy memories to all of the Jim Crow South, or just his tiny, remote, secluded corner of it. Still, there is something crassly ironic about Bayne comparing the bravery of Rosa Parks to a man who might not even believe that Rosa Parks had cause for complaint.