Alan Thicke has turned to comedy to defuse a public controversy stoked by his one-time TV son’s high profile homophobic comments.
Thicke, who played Kirk Cameron‘s father on the family friendly sitcom Growing Pains, tweeted in response to Cameron calling homosexuality “unnatural” and “destructive” on Piers Morgan Tonight, writing “I’m getting him some new books. The Old Testament simply can’t be expected to explain everything.” That tweet followed a softer comment on Sunday night, in which Thicke tweeted, “I’ll address kirk’s comments as soon as I recover from rush limbaugh’s.”
Later in the day, Thicke added another joke, tweeting, “I love Kirk but I may have to spank him…’tho not in a gay way!”
Cameron also came out against gay marriage in the interview, saying, “One man, one woman for life till death do you part. … So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don’t.”
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Tracy Gold, who played Cameron’s Growing Pains sister, tweeted a rebuke of his comments on Sunday night, writing, “I am a strong supporter of the #LGBT Community, and I believe in equal rights for all. #NOH8 #LOVE”
A large number of celebrities have come out against Cameron’s anti-gay interview, with Jesse Tyler Ferguson writing, “The only unnatural thing about me being gay is that I had a crush on Kirk Cameron until about 24 hours ago” and Roseanne Barr adding “kirk or kurt or whatever cameron is an accomplice to murder with his hate speech. so is rick warren. their peers r killing gays in uganda.”
Cameron has a long history of evangelical activism; he has starred in a number of Christian movies, and runs a ministry called The Way of the Master.
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