He of course has a right to his views but A&E also has the right not to use him on the show.
This.
A&E simply has no room for voices of dissent. All must conform to GLAAD's (MEM's) morality or they will be silenced.
And there's nothing wrong with that. It's A&E's network, after all.
The original group trying to play victim here was A&E executives.
A&E has made millions off a show depicting real life "rednecks." Anyone who has watched even one commercial can see that the network's intent was to highlight how "backwoods" and "unsophisticated" these people supposedly are.
This too.
So, now, one of the very people they hired precisely because they wanted stupid rednecks says something consistent with the views many rednecks and now the network suddenly decides that kind of behavior is unacceptable?
I call b.s.
If they think giving that kind of a person a platform is wrong, then stop profiting from the show in the first place.
But not this.
It's not exactly fair to assume that he's racist and homophobic because he's a redneck. I've met quite a few racist rednecks in my life (I can't speak on their views on homosexuality since they never came up), but I've also met rednecks who were anything but.
Anyway, I don't think A&E did anything wrong here. They gave these guys a show, predicting its success based on hits like Honey Boo Boo, and suspended that show when the star said something that stood to alienate a large part of that show's fanbase.
No, what they did wasn't B.S. It was just stupid. They should have vetted their reality stars better, or at least put it in writing that these guys wouldn't say anything political while the show was still on air.
I was gonna reply to some of the other posts here, but I have to get ready for work, so, you know, whatevs.
