Country Singer Jason Aldean Dropped by Longtime PR Firm Over Wife’s Gender Comments

Country Singer Jason Aldean Dropped by Longtime PR Firm Over Wife’s Gender Comments

GreenRoom’s Blacklist?

By Jonathan Turley

Country singer Jason Aldean has been dropped by his longtime PR firm, GreenRoom PR, after his wife, Brittany Aldean, criticized early interventions on gender transitioning for young children. Brittany Aldean said that she was thankful that her parents did not intervene during her “tomboy phase” because she loves being a female. Various stars and advocates denounced her and GreenRoom then dropped her husband. What is interesting is that the company had its client list displayed yesterday but just removed the list and its home page. The effort may be to protect other country stars from the backlash of staying with the company when it is effectively blacklisting an artist for the political or social views of his spouse.

Tyne Parrish, the co-owner of The Green Room called it a “difficult decision after 17 years to step away from representing Jason.”

The call for the firm to drop the artist grew after this statement last week in an Instagram post by Aldean that she would “really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase.”

“The Bones” singer Maren Morris later commented on Pope’s post, writing, “It’s so easy to, like, not be a scumbag human? Sell your clip-ins and zip it, Insurrection Barbie.”

Aldean later responded to her critics by saying “Advocating for the genital mutilation of children under the disguise of love and calling it ‘gender affirming care’ is one of the worst evils.”

Singer and songwriter Cassadee Pope responded to Brittany Aldean’s post on Twitter, noting that Brittany Aldean’s alleged “tomboy phase” in no way compares “to someone wanting to transition.”

Pope captured the essence of many people who are angry with the comment.

However, my concern, as usual, is with the free speech implications of what has become a type of blacklisting culture for those with unpopular or controversial political, social, or religious views. I understand the objections to Aldean’s comments but the response is reminiscent of the campaign against JK Rowling as a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), including banning and burning her books. There is no willingness to separate her creative work from her personal views.

In this case, a singer is being blacklisted because his wife (and possibly Aldean himself) hold conservative views on gender transitioning for young children. Yet, while some artists have joined the campaign, most others are silent, including the country singers represented by Green Room PR.

Those listed artists included Lauren Akins, Tucker Beathard, Dierks Bentley, Bobby Bones, BROOKS & DUNN, Travis Denning, Patrict Droney, Caylee Hammack, and others. The home page now says simply “Contact: [email protected]” if you want to know who the firm represents or anything about the firm.

The concern is clearly that these artists might make the “difficult decision” of separating from the firm after it dropped a fellow artist over the political and social views of his spouse.  The firm yielded to the pressure on one side but seems to be moving to protect itself from a backlash from country music fans.

I would be raising the same free speech concerns if an artist was dropped because a spouse supported gender transitioning. The issue is whether the arts community should impose a de facto political litmus test for artists.  Blacklisting by studios and firms was common in the 1950s when communists and other political dissenters were being attacked by figures like Eugene McCarthy. The left has now embraced the practice in a far more extensive systems of banning books, speakers, and events by those who hold opposing views.

Here is Aldean’s interview on Fox News:

*********

(TLB) published this article from Jonathan Turley with our appreciation for this  perspective. 

Header featured image (edited)  credit: Brittany Aldean/orginal J. Turley article

Bio

Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, University of Chicago, and other schools.

After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In addition to his extensive publications, Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades including the representation of whistleblowers, military personnel, judges, members of Congress, and a wide range of other clients.

Continue reading Bio…

••••

••••

Stay tuned to …

••••

The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)

••••

Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.

••••

Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

••••

Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.