Recently, Derick Dillard went on a homophobic rant about one of TLC"s home improvement shows that features a gay couple and their family.
His controversial remarks were discussed so much that they were addressed on The View, which you can see in the video below.
Now, Derick is responding … and accusing the talk show hosts of bullying him.
Derick Dillard is known for his trolling tweets and sometimes comes across as desperate for attention now that he and Jill are no longer on Counting On.
This time, instead of bashing trans reality star Jazz Jennings, he is taking aim at Nate & Jeremiah By Design, a home improvement show on TLC.
"What a travesty of family. It’s sad how blatant the liberal agenda is, such that it both highlights and celebrates a lifestyle so degrading to children on public television as if it should be normal."
Hard to see how a child being in a loving home is degrading.
"They affect this poor child, as well as what perversions are celebrated. If it were adultery, I doubt a network would be so quick to focus on the reality of it as if it were ok."
Equating same-sex marriage to adultery is, of course, quite a reach.
But he says that he"s not being hateful.
"I’m not bashing the people, I’m just calling out the public agenda at play and how a network chooses what they highlight. Christians should love all as Christ loved all. Take advantage of capitalism: boycott what you don’t believe in, but don’t boycott relationships."
So he"s not being hateful … but he doesn"t think that these people should be on television because they"re gay parents.
Whoopi speaks up first, saying:
"You don"t have to agree with anybody"s lifestyle. But you don"t live in their house. Just like we don"t live in a house where there are 900 kids."
Basically, she"s saying that Derick doesn"t have much room to talk about unusual lifestyles, giving the family into which he married.
Sara Haines chimes in, saying:
"Some of my idols as parents are gay." She provides an example of a gay couple and their child (and adorable bulldog).
Sunny Hostin then says that she thinks that stances like Derick"s come from "people that lack empathy."
She also says that "people that haven"t been around gay couples."
One by one, each of the hosts on The View talks about same-sex parents, from personal anecdotes and from statistics, being healthy and loving.
Derick responded to this, decrying the segment as bullying:
"Really?! Are my friends on The View really going to be our standard & champion for open-mindedness?"
One, they"re not your friends, dude. Two, they"re not the standard, but they are meeting the minimum requirements for human decency.
"Conviction doesn’t equal lack of open mindedness."
That is technically true.
"We need to love all people & promote what’s best for everyone."
See, Derick isn"t a kill-all-gay-people sort of bigot, he"s a all-gay-people-should-just-not-be-gay bigot. He believes that his views are compassionate.
"Most Americans believe this, but are fearful of bullying like this."
If he"s saying that most Americans oppose marriage equality, that is false. Just under two-thirds of Americans support same-sex marriage.
And then, of course, there"s his accusation that what these hosts have to say is bullying.
First of all, they don"t really seem to talk about Derick enough for this to qualify as bullying.
As you"ll see in the clip below, they mostly talk about same-sex couples who are parents whom they know and love.
Meghan McCain shares that her mother came around on marriage equality when she realized that so many children could be adopted into loving homes.
They also talk about how, for both adults and for children, knowing families with same-sex parents makes it clear that the sort of gay bogeyman that anti-gay activists describe doesn"t at all match up with the real thing.
Derick does say that he has been exposed to people who aren"t like him, tweeting:
"I have friends who are homosexual and was in public school for 17 years, including university band, fraternity life, and spirit squad. I think I’ve more than opened my mind and eyes to experience all kinds of people very different than myself."
That"s … sad.
But we have to remember that Derick Dillard comes from the far-right fringes of American Christianity.
We don"t doubt that, among the people with whom he associates, the majority do oppose marriage equality and same-sex parents adopting and a host of other things.
There is a narrative among extreme conservatives that Christianity is being oppressed in the United States, even though Christians are of course the majority.
The narrative has been very popular recently among conservative politicians, who believe that Trump and politicians like him are "hitting back" at their oppressors.
It is also a popular narrative with Derick and those who support his less-than-kind tweets.
Watch this video for yourself and decide if this is bullying … or some heartfelt discussion of a topic near and dear to the hearts of the hosts.
