Final thoughts on today's Liam drama: Language has meaning, and so does context. When you go out of your way to randomly tweet a member of the Duck Dynasty clan, one that went on record saying he would refuse to continue the show unless his father who defended racist Jim Crow laws and equated gay men to people who have sex with animals, that you loved how he kept his family together and had "family values" (which has never meant anything but anti-gay since the American right took it on in the 60s) it's going to make waves. I am a huge fan, huge, but that is going to make me pause and go "Oh hale no." It's entirely possible Liam had no idea the context that "family values" has in America. It's also entirely possible for someone to say something nice about gay people one day and say something incredibly hateful the next. At best Liam is ignorant, at worst he's homophobic. Regardless, the ugliest part of this situation isn't Liam, it's the fans that have used this to blindly defend someone by using homophobic language and threatening gay people who have every right to be pissed off. Unless you are gay you have no idea what this kind of things feels like. There is a a way to talk about this, attacking gay people who are peeved is not that way. Liam is clearly in a spiral of self-defense right now, and trust me, I'd love to believe he didn't tweet a right wing slogan that is entrenched in anti-gay hate on purpose, but I have a hard time spilling tears out for him or cheering him on. He had plenty of chances to acknowledge the weight of what he said given the context of the Duck Dynasty clan but instead he's just encouraged fans to keep attacking people who have every right to be upset. Not a good move.

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