Cracker Barrel Pulls ‘Offensive’ ‘Duck Dynasty’ Products
Cracker Barrel has become the first major Duck Dynasty product partner to pull merchandise from the A&E series from their stores.
“Cracker Barrel’s mission is Pleasing People. We operate within the ideals of fairness, mutual respect and equal treatment of all people. These ideals are the core of our corporate culture,” the company said in a statement.
“We continue to offer Duck Commander products in our stores. We removed selected products which we were concerned might offend some of our guests while we evaluate the situation. We continually evaluate the products we offer and will continue to do so.”
Cracker Barrel did not clarify which items were pulled from stores, but A&E’s Duck Dynasty merchandising is separate from the Duck Commander line owned by the Robertson family.
The decision to remove the products from the stores comes after A&E suspended Phil Robertson indefinitely for his recent anti-gay comments.
In an interview, Robertson said that society has started to embrace sinful behavior.
“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,” Robertson said. He also called homosexuality illogical.
“It seems to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus,” the Duck Dynasty patriarch said. “That’s just me. I’m just thinking, ‘There’s more there! She’s got more to offer.’ I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”
Robertson also claimed that black people were happy during the pre-civil rights era.
“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,” Robertson said.
The Human Rights Campaign and the NAACP wrote a joint letter to the president of A&E expressing their concern over Phil Robertson’s comments.
“We want to be clear why Phil Robertson’s remarks are not just dangerous but also inaccurate. Mr. Robertson claims that, from what he saw, African Americans were happier under Jim Crow,” the letter read. “What he didn’t see were lynching and beatings of black men and women for attempting to vote or simply walking down the street.”
The letter continued:
“And his offensive claims about gay people fly in the face of science. In fact, it’s important to note that every single leading medical organization in the country has said that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being [lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender] — it’s not a choice, and to suggest otherwise is dangerous.”
[Image via Colleen Greene]
