they probably realized that the people who were offended by Phil Robertson's remarks are people who read GQ mag, and not necessarily the people who actually watch Duck Dynasty. When they catered to the party that isn't really their audience, they offended the ones that are bringing them money.
Props go to GQ for trolling both sides and getting a lot of exposure and magazine sales out of it.
I always assume that people who actually read books and magazines are not easily offended, and (other than PC liberals trying to ban TOM SAWYER by Twain) I've never heard of a censorship drive rising from something in print. Only to something on television or video/broadcast news.
A & E and Cracker Barrell (over-reacting to gay fringe group GLAAD) assumed that readers of GQ and Crackerbarrel shoppers would react the same way as GLAAD and gay secularists. It just demonstrates how little they bothered to understand the stars of their own show, and their audience.
As I understand, there are gays who work at A & E who were offended by the remark and pushed for the suspension. Projecting their own liberal intolerance onto their conservative audience, who were rightly offended.
A & E and Crackerbarrel were both lucky, that despite their offense, their conservative audience would rather have Duck Dynasty than stay mad at A & E.
Just the same, I would have loved to see the Robertsons walk away from A & E, and take their hot property to another network.
