The cast of “Guardians of the Galaxy” has released an open letter asking for the reinstatement of James Gunn as director on the Marvel franchise.

The letter is in response to Gunn’s recent firing by Disney, which owns Marvel, after Gunn’s past tweets making light of pedophilia went viral. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Michael Rooker, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista and Karen Gillan all signed the letter.

“We fully support James Gunn,” the letter reads. “We were all shocked by his abrupt firing last week and have intentionally waited these ten days to respond in order to think, pray, listen and discuss.”

“We are not here to defend his jokes of many years ago but rather to share our experience having spent many years together on set making ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ 1 and 2,” the letter continues. “The character he has shown in the wake of his firing is consistent with the man he was every day on set, and his apology, now and from years ago when first addressing these remarks, we believe is from the heart, a heart we all know, trust and love.”

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is currently scheduled to be released in 2020.

Yet the letter ignores a key fact. Gunn’s old tweets were shared in response to the recent firing of Roseanne Barr from her own hit show — after she tweeted a bad joke that was deemed racist. Despite her immediate apology, Barr was axed by ABC, which is also owned by Disney.

Gunn’s tweets were shared to highlight the fact that going down the path of firing people for making bad jokes or fumbling their words on social media leads nowhere very quickly.

If Gunn, an outspoken liberal who supported the firing of Barr, is rehired to his franchise, then Disney should rehire Barr, too.

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(photo credit, article image: James Gunn, CC BY 2.0, by Anthony Quintano)