The perennially uneven playing field

January 26, 2008

There was a story circulating in my email yesterday about unequal disciplinary action toward first an actor on Grey's Anatomy last year,and second, toward an anchorlady on ESPN more recently. The gist of the story was that the actor was fired for an anti-gay remark he made during rehearsal, while the anchorlady was given a one-month suspension for publicly uttering a phrase that included "F---Jesus!" The sender of the email (supposedly The American Family Association, headquartered in Tupelo, MS--although you sometimes can't tell who sends something and how edited it is when you receive it) argued this amounted to unequal punishment, since ESPN is owned by ABC and the parent company should have used the same level of discipline for both offenses.

Now IF my version of the story is completely accurate, then I would have to agree, although most of us would want to know more details than what was provided. How could anyone argue that an anti-gay remark uttered in relative privacy was more serious than a public utterance of perhaps the most blasphemous remark possible, one that would offend literally tens of millions of believers? The two occurrences are simply not of the same severity, and yet both are harmful. Obviously, any remark that engenders hostility to gays must be disciplined, as is such a remark to the Christian community. I would argue that, if anything, the "F___ Jesus" remark is much more damaging, as it was reportedly a public statement and is so incredibly obscene and blasphemous.

Regardless, however, if this lapse in equal punishment actually occurred, it demonstrates one of the plights of today's Christianity--that anything, any offense or slur or punishment, can be discretely swept under the rug, if only it is aimed at what one might term "those stupid, bible-thumping hicks with their ignorant beliefs in this fantasy about an obscure carpenter being the Son of God, born of a virgin, if you can believe that crap, and then being raised from the dead. Give me a break!"

Of course, I do believe all that supposed nonsense, down to the last biblical detail. But so many people want to mock my beliefs. What do you believe?

Micah the Moderator