Sigh...no context, just a quick Associated Press gotcha blurb.

Yep, that reader's email to GetReligion pretty much sums up an atrocious, 135-word piece of AP "journalism" on Phil Robertson of "Duck Dynasty" fame.

The headline:

New anti-gay remarks by 'Duck Dynasty' star emerge

The lede:

NEW YORK (AP) — A&E has declined to comment on new video of "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson reviving past anti-gay remarks.
His comments are included in a sermon delivered at his church in West Monroe, Louisiana, on Easter Sunday. Robertson includes homosexuals with other groups such as thieves and adulterers as hell-bound sinners.

What exactly did Robertson say? Did he quote the Bible inside a church (say, 1 Corinthians 6:9)? Why is it important for A&E — and not Robertson himself — to be contacted for comment?

AP provides no details at all.

Let's keep reading:

Robertson is the bearded patriarch of a clan that manufactures duck calls and became reality-TV stars. In December he set off a firestorm after GQ magazine quoted him linking homosexual behavior to bestiality.

Here is what GQoriginally reported:

What, in your mind, is sinful?
“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,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

Is that linking homosexual behavior to bestiality?

More from AP:

He also made racist statements.

From the original GQ article:

Phil On Growing Up in Pre-Civil-Rights-Era Louisiana
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. 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.”

That may be a naive, even stupid thing to say, but is it racist?

This is true: Robertson — like millions of Christians who believe in traditional, 2,000-year-old doctrine — considers homosexuality a sin. That much has been clear for months.

But did the Duck Commander really say anything deserving a brand new, national wire headline?

Answering that question would require AP to engage in the actual practice of journalism instead of skirting at the edges of libel.