Empathy is the basis for morality, not an arbitrary set of rules handed an invisible, undetectable entity. Our ability to understand the impact of our behavior is the thing that separates us from animals. If Phil [Robertson] needs constant supervision from a god to keep from raping/killing, he has the moral understanding of an animal. My dog can refrain from stealing food if I'm watching. Phil has reduced human morality to a fear of punishment. As a father and husband in a non-believing family, I shudder at the thought of how many American evangelicals agree with this.
Dry drunk Phil Robertson's old man sanctimony has a nasty, violent provenance but Robertson blames that history on Satan and a permissive 60s culture — not himself — insisting that outside forces were responsible for the eight years of liquor and substance abuse in his 20s during which he savagely beat a bar owner and his wife over a rent dispute, sending them to the hospital and forcing his wife and small sons to fend for themselves while he hid in the woods of a neighboring state from the Louisiana State Patrol for four months.
After repeatedly kicking his wife and kids out of the house, Robertson finally straightened up.
Nowadays, the only people Robertson assaults are LGBTs, with cherry-picked biblical clobber phrases from the Apostle Paul.
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