(CNN) — Little more than a week after it suspended “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson for incendiary remarks about homosexuality, the cable channel A&E said Friday that it would include him in future tapings of the reality television show, effectively lifting the suspension amid a flurry of petitions in support of Robertson.
“After discussions with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&E has decided to resume filming Duck Dynasty later this spring with the entire Robertson family,” the channel said in a statement.
In an apparent gesture to the advocacy groups, A&E said that it would “also use this moment” to broadcast public service announcements “promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people.”
The announcement came nine days after A&E originally suspended Robertson.
At the time, A&E said it was placing Robertson “under hiatus from filming indefinitely” due to the cast member’s controversial comments to a GQ magazine interviewer.
When the interviewer asked Robertson what he thought was sinful, he replied, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”
Robertson used language that his family later described as “coarse.” At one point he remarked that “it seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes!”
Furthermore, Robertson said that when he was growing up in Louisiana in the pre-civil rights era, “I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once.”
He continued, “Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field … They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word! Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
When the comments were published by GQ, gay rights groups including GLAAD and civil rights groups including the Human Rights Campaign alerted A&E. The channel subsequently expressed disappointment in the comments and said Robertson had been suspended.
One season’s worth of episodes featuring Robertson had already been taped, so the suspension would only have affected future tapings in 2014.
