When the sometimes-unthinking media throw the punches

There's been a lot of talk lately about the need for more tolerance and compassion. But could it be that such calls for tolerance and compassion are mere attempts to get people accustomed to the idea and the sight of indecency and unnatural behavior and pave the way for their acceptance into society? I'm referring to indecency in various forms but more specifically to homosexual activity and, as a possible consequence, same-sex unions as legitimized by civil law.

So now that I've expressed an idea that may ruffle the feathers of some of the noisier and more vocal members of society, what I actually said may be misconstrued to mean something different. For instance, I wrote "the idea and the sight of indecency and unnatural behavior" up there, and even though what I have in mind are actions and situations, it's possible that someone may cry "foul!" and claim that I'm a bigot for saying or even implying that people who experience same-sex attraction are indecent. I'll leave it at that, partly to make anyone reading this think more about the point. There's too little level-headed analysis and too much hysterics and knee-jerk reactions going on these days; offering a challenge for rumination, therefore, could be the way out of such unprocessed conclusions that fill the blogosphere and mainstream media.





Zeroing in on a particular person and issue here, let me provide some links that can get you going on your way to rumination amid the multi-sensory assault you may be contending with as far as Philippine boxing champ and legislator Manny Pacquiao's supposed anti-gay remarks are concerned.

Instead of sharing stories that tell the details of the original incident, allow me to share excerpts and links to a few articles that shed light on the mistaken ideas that such stories started and fueled. (Besides, details of the incidents can be found in some of the links)

All of this was ignoring one big thing: Pacquiao hadn’t said all of what was being attributed to him, and that his biblical evocation had been inserted by the interviewing writer. (The writer was not completely magnanimous in clarifying these points, either.) On Wednesday, Pacquiao spoke up to clear things up. “I’m not against the gay people,” he said. “What I said is I’m not in favor of same-sex marriage.” Contacted by the Journal, Pacquiao spokesman Fred Sternberg shed a little more light on the situation: “Manny’s sponsors know him well enough that the quotes in question couldn’t have come from him, which the author of the Examiner.com article confirmed yesterday,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Read What Pacquiao Did and Didn't Say

L.A. bigwig developer Rick Caruso, who has mayoral aspirations, squeezed himself into the Catholic-bashing clown car. He announced on Twitter that Pacquiao would be banned from his trendy shopping complex, The Grove. The mall, Caruso wrote, "is a gathering place for all Angelenos, not a place for intolerance."

Except for intolerance of completely mainstream views on gay marriage held by millions of practicing people of faith.

Read How the Gay-Marriage mob slimed a Boxing Champ






Photos from Global Post (top) and The Guardian (above)