‘Duck Dynasty’: Did A&E suspend Phil Robertson out of respect to gay employees?

With almost every passing day now (even on a weekend) it seems like we are getting yet another update when it comes to the “Duck Dynasty” situation … and this apparently also applies for weekends, the time when there is typically not much breaking news.

According to a report from TMZ, one of the reasons why A&E and CEO Nancy Dubuc decided to make the quick decision to suspend family patriarch Phil Robertson was largely due to the number of upset gay employees who work on the show, and many of them wanted to see Robertson removed outright. The “indefinite suspension” was an attempt at some sort of compromise … but like many other compromises, nobody is happy. (If only there was a way to pull a “win win win” out of this like Michael Scott taught us back on “The Office.”)

For now, most of the cast is probably going to continue to stay pretty quiet on the move by the network, and opt instead to spend most of their time celebrating the holiday season as a family. While there are reportedly conversations, we see this being a standoff for quite a long time. A&E will not change its position without some sort of consequence, and the rest of the Robertson family will continue to hold off on filming the show until Phil is allowed to come back on as the family patriarch. Every episode ends with a prayer from Phil, so it would be hard to really be able to do the show at all without him.

One message that we did find somewhat interesting today on Twitter was from Justin Martin (known more by his last name), one of the employees of Duck Commander shown often on TV:

“Can’t say enough how much we all appreciate the prayers and words of support. Off to bed because it’s duck season #FAITHFAMILYDUCKS”