Here's Everything We Learned From the <i>Duck Dynasty</i> Controversy Summed Up in Just One Sentence

You can say whatever you want, including that gay people are sinful and full of "murder, envy, strife, hatred" and are in the same league as those who enjoy being penetrated by barnyard animals, and that black people were "happy" and were not "singing the blues" when Jim Crow laws ruled America, and as long as you later tack on "I love all of humanity" and say that you would "never incite or encourage hate" and throw around the word "tolerance," and as long as there's enough money and publicity swirling, and more ready to be made, you will face absolutely no consequences, and if anything, you'll be celebrated as a hero and lauded as an icon of freedom -- some will even go so far as to call you the "Rosa Parks" of our generation -- while the people you were talking about will still be vilified and will have to fight even harder against society's belief that they are -- even in the 21st century, even in a country that is not supposed to be ruled by religion or heartless, hateful zealots -- at their very core, all those vile and (let it be said once and for all) patently untrue things that you said about them.