@BillRM,
Quote:however we are not talking about answering Phil with either insults or reason but instead mounting an attack on his livelihood for expressing his religious beliefs base on the bible.
Suppose Phil were a fundamentalist Muslim, and he publicly condemned and defamed all Christians in the way that he condemns homosexuals. Would you honestly expect an American employer to retain him, simply because he was voicing statements about "infidels" according to his religious beliefs?
What might have threatened Robertson's livelihood was his hate speech and bigotry, not his religious views. It's perfectly all right for him to feel that homosexuality, and adultery, and pre-marital sex, are all wrong. He doesn't have to personally accept any of those things. But when he starts mounting vicious verbal attacks on the characters of the people who engage in any of those behaviors, he crosses a line that's really not acceptable to most employers, because he's generating and promoting hatred toward entire groups, including their other employees. And there is no reason for any employer to be accepting of his bigotry because he claims it's part of his religion.
It was Robertson who threatened his own livelihood by exposing his bigotry. Mel Gibson did the same. White supremacists also claim to be guided by their Christian religious views too, and if Robertson voiced white supremacist views, as an expression of his religion, he'd be threatening his livelihood as well.
And the sort of remarks that Robertson makes about homosexuals threatens their ability to make a living, since he views, not only their sexual behaviors, but
their characters, in despicable terms, and the sort of thinking he promotes has real life negative consequences for them because his message is also that they are untrustworthy, and engage "in all manner of evil" and homosexuals have suffered as the result of discriminatory employment practices in the past, so they have every reason to be outraged when they are defamed in this way, because they know what the consequences can be if they remain silent .
No one protesting Robertson's remarks "mounted an attack on his livelihood"--advocacy groups, very understandably, registered their offense at his remarks, but none, that I am aware of, demanded that he be fired. They simply asked to meet with A & E. On the other hand, the faith-based organizations supporting Robertson mounted an organized campaign against A & E, with threats of attacking the livelihood of his employer, by boycotting the network, or it's advertisers, if they chose to fire him.
Robertson has a right to his religious beliefs, but he has no right to have a reality TV show.