The "Duck Dynasty" situation has gotten as hot and spicy as a bowl of creole jambalaya, with the down-home Louisiana family threatening to walk away from its popular cable show and host channel A&E network stuck between a rock and a hard gumbo.

The temperature rose Friday, when a insider to the show -- which generates nearly half a billion dollars in advertising and merchandise -- said the family is "serious" in its threat to walk away if A&E goes through with a suspension for patriarch Phil Robertson.

That threat sets up only two ways the spectacle can end.

"If the network backs down and they bring Phil back, they look weak. If they stand their ground, the family probably won’t move forward, and A&E loses their highest-rated show," the insider told E!

"No one can really imagine the show going forward without Phil. It would be too weird," the source said, adding that the family is hunkering down and drawing together, with their top priority of not abandoning Papa Phil.

"They're an extremely tight-knit family, and they’re not going to let this get in the way," the  source told E! "He is the reason for their success — they’re not going to abandon him."

Right now, it's unclear whether the family -- already multimillionaires and in no need of the $1.4 million A&E pays them each year -- will return for a fifth season. The network put Phil Robertson on indefinite suspension after he made comments in a magazine interview that the gay community found offensive.

Asked about "sin," he said: "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 went on to quote the Bible in explaining his own personal views.

In a new twist, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) wants Phil to undertake a re-education regimen.

"We believe the next step is to use this as an opportunity for Phil to sit down with gay families in Louisiana and learn about their lives and the values they share," GLAAD's vice president of communications Rich Ferraro told The Wrap.

"I don’t think this is about the First Amendment," he said. "I feel it’s more about the America we live in today. That is one where Americans, gay and straight, are able to speak out when people in the public eye make anti-gay and racist remarks."

GLAAD is trying to target companies that may continue to advertise on cable's most popular show.

"Silence is agreement in this case," Ferraro said. "With such egregious anti-gay and racist comments, those companies that choose to be affiliated with this family need to speak out."

But at least one company is sticking with the family. Baltimore-based sports apparel maker Under Armour will stay with the program, although it did say Phil's comments were "not reflective" on the company.

So far, the controversy isn't hurting merchandise sales. The family has a huge enterprise on merxchandising, estimated by Forbes to be worth $400 million. This week, Walmart sold out of the show's gear -- and the company is staying mum on whether it will continue its highly lucrative relationship with the family.

Meanwhile, there has been steady -- even fierce -- pushback from the Christian community, which sees in the brouhaha an attempt to force them to alter their views. Radio talk show host Steve Deace laid out the situation in a USA Today column on Saturday.

"A nation founded by pilgrims who came here to worship the God of the Bible freely without interference and persecution from ruling elites and those opposed to Christianity's influence on the culture, has now come to the proverbial fork in the road. After years of attempting to balance traditional Americana with political correctness, those pushing the new 'my way or the highway' definition of 'tolerance' have decided accommodating our differences of opinion is defeat," he wrote.

And at the end of his piece, he had this dire warning: 

"Back to that proverbial fork in the road. One sign says 'liberty.' The other sign says 'political correctness.' Every individual American and every American institution will have to choose one or the other. We can no longer have both, and the truth is we really never could. It was always going to end this way, we just didn't want to believe it."