Hello again--we had an extended civil discussion on a different thread a couple of days ago.
You alluded to this then and have raised it again here, and I'm still curious how exactly this works. Apparently, there is standard contract language giving A&E the right to "censor" Phil in this way in order to protect A&E's investment--is that right? If so, how is it at all enforceable? It's so subjective: these topics are off limits. Are you saying that Phil agreed in advance to such complete censorship?
These are interesting things to debate, and for a lot of them we will need to answer “we don’t know, and we agree to disagree on our tentative opinions.”
Here’s MY pet theory. God has raised up Phil for (at least) the purpose of giving America a true conundrum to puzzle over. Both liberal America and conservative America. He’s the cash cow of a screaming liberal set. He’s said the “unthinkable” before a huge audience and is standing firm. Whaddya do? Whaddya do?
I think here is an opportunity where Christian ministry can start to break another impasse: the impasse over actually HELPING homosexuals. Maybe the Robertsons may even play a role in this; and/or God may have others lined up. I’ve been telling folks till I am blue in the face (and maybe I should add it as a section to my Freep page): homosexuality should not be that difficult a challenge for Christendom. It’s a misdirection of inbuilt love capacity. If the sin is forgiven and the faculties that were involved are presented to God for sanctification, the problem WILL be worked out. By God. And we will get a new group of manly Christians. And they will make heterosexuals jealous to see this aspect of the Lord worked out in their own life. It will be all good, if we let God have His way again. And perhaps after getting thoroughly frustrated with the dead ends of evil, we will yield to God. I pray we will.
I certainly would ask the ex-gay set, and yes it exists today: beef up your faiths, and get out there and start making yourself visible and tell what God did for you. Because God will have your backs if you do. You might suffer, but even the sufferings will be blessings in disguise.
There’s layers on how this kind of thing works. Phil’s contract will include some boiler plate language barring bringing bad PR. This would be what got him suspended, frequently that section is referred to as the “morals clause” but that’s only because the most common ways stars bring bad PR involve immoral things like drugs and hookers, the clauses usually focus on the publicity not the behavior.
The other big layer is the interview prep. Whenever somebody gives an interview there’s generally stuff they (or their employer) wants them to discuss and stuff they (or their employer) doesn’t want them to discuss. This all gets negotiated before hand by the agent/ handler/ rep, technically the one being censored is the interviewer, they are being forbidden from “gotcha” questions that distract the reason of the interview. The way it’s enforced is that if the interviews doesn’t obey the rules the interview is over. Now what’s a gotcha question of course varies from person to person but given the state of things pretty much anything related to gays should be on everybody’s banned list because it’s not possible to give an answer to that without making somebody mad, when you’re sending somebody out there to promote the new season of the show spawning boycotts is not the goal.
Now it’s important to understand that just because something is banned from interviews doesn’t mean the person can’t discuss it, but they need to know their setting and audience and be aware of the PR implications. If Phil had (and he probably has) said those things while guest sermoning at a church nobody would care, that’s a limited audience that’s pre-selected to agree with what he’s saying, no bad PR will happen. Totally different than saying that stuff in the magazine that basically invented metro-sexuals and a significant percentage of the subscribers is gay not to mention the whole available free on the web thing. No longer is the audience limited, and a lot of them will not agree, bad PR ensues, next season of the show not properly promoted.