No need to duck for cover at home - Vancouver Sun

"Faith. Family. Ducks." It's the unofficial motto for the family featured in the TV reality show Duck Dynasty and that homespun philosophy permeates nearly everything in this small north Louisiana town.

It's perhaps most on display at the White's Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, where the Robertson family prays and preaches most Sunday mornings.

The family - including patriarch Phil Robertson, who ignited a controversy last week when he told a magazine reporter that gays are sinners and African-Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws - was in a front pew this past Sunday. And standing by beliefs they say are deeply rooted in their reading of the Bible.

The rest of the flock, decked out in Duck Dynasty hats and bandanas, stood by the family and the sentiments Phil Robertson expressed.

Alan, Robertson's eldest son, helped deliver a Christmasthemed sermon. He started off by referring to last week's controversy.

"Hope your week went well," he dead-panned. "Ours was kinda' slow." He was referring, of course, to Phil's forced hiatus: TV network A&E suspended Phil last week after remarks about blacks and gays caused a public uproar.

But the controversy barely resonated above the organ music at White's Ferry Road Church. Son Willie - the CEO of the multimillion dollar Duck Commander duck call and decoy enterprise that inspired reality-show producers to give the family a show - put on camouflage wader overalls and baptized three people, including one man with cancer.

"Who's going to be the lord of your life?" he asked, before dipping the man back into the baptismal pool at the front of the church.

To the people of West Monroe, this is the Robertson family: honest, family-focused and filled with the love of God and Jesus. It's the family that brought the spotlight to West Monroe, population 13,000, and in doing so put in sharp relief the cultural, political and religious differences that define - and often divide - America.

Folks here don't care that Phil Robertson told a GQ reporter that gays are sinners who are going to hell.

They do care that A&E suspended Phil. The move, they say, was unfair and an affront to viewers, to the Robertsons and to Christians everywhere.

"The program and his comments take a snapshot and it doesn't represent the totality of what the guy is all about," said Richard Laban, the owner of Redneck Roots, a downtown West Monroe store that sells some Duck Dynasty T-shirts and souvenirs.

"A&E reacted entirely too quickly," added Laban. "They really treated Phil as if he was a terrorist."

With its lakes and rolling hills and pine forests, West Monroe in northern Louisiana is Duck Country USA, a place where Robertson and his four sons built an empire on duck call devices and decoys before becoming wildly popular TV stars.

"I've known Phil for 30 years," said Mike Walsworth, the owner of the Gingerbread Shop, an antique and gift shop. "He hasn't changed for 30 years." In the store's window, there's a miniature holiday village and model train in the window.

The drive-in theatre's movie marquee shows It's a Wonderful Life, and, indeed, West Monroe could perhaps be mistaken for a smaller Bedford Falls - if reality hadn't come to town.