Not all opinions are created equal...

I was looking through the sitemeter record of which pages people are visiting, and one about squid-licking monkey boy Reed Heustis came up. I followed the link, and it took me to an old blog post that I had written way back in January 2008. At the end of this there was a strange little disclaimer link that I included because even though Reed was a lawyer he was already unpleasant by disposition.

I followed the link in the disclaimer and it took me to...the Taj Mahal of modern ignorance. The Mouth Rushmore of knuckle-dragging. The Very Big and Impressive Thing of something less grand. It was EtherZone: The Intelligent Alternative. (Clearly a typo. It was clearly meant to read: "the alternative to intelligence.") This article is by a guy named Phil Brennan, with whom his family should seriously consider breaking off ties. The article was called:

THE PASSION OF MEL GIBSON
SURE, HE'S A SINNER

By: Phil Brennan

Sure, he's a sinner, against his fellow man, common decency and sobriety.

I don’t know Mel Gibson. A colleague who does tells me that Gibson admired my columns, notably the one I wrote about his last motion picture, The Passion of the Christ, for NewsMax.Com. And in my conceit I like to think that my book “Sindone: on the Shroud Turin and what it tells us about Christ’s passion and death was among his research materials.

You hunger for the praise of the racist? Wow. How low can you go? (Pretty low, it will turn out.)

I have however, paid keen attention to his work, as well as his comings and goings as chronicled in the media, which does not share my admiration for the man and his accomplishments, especially his depiction of the final hours of Jesus Christ in this world.

He did not reach superstardom by staying out of the media's good graces.

We are now witnessing the passion of Mel Gibson, played out in the sordid tale of his troubled relationship with his former mistress, much of it revealed in a series of tape recordings which are alleged to have been doctored and thus unreliable.

Oh, that's how it works. Well, I allege that your article has been doctored and is thus unreliable.

This is not the first time Mr. Gibson has been pilloried in the media for past examples of his public misbehavior, much of which appears to have been motivated by the consumption of an unacceptable amount of booze, which was certainly the case in the rampage that got him busted.

Booze does not put racism in your head, simp. It lowers the capacity to self-censor and allows what was already there out. Or, what everyone knew from watching his passionate snuff film.

I don’t know if prior to his tape recorded phone tirades with the woman who appears to be motivated by greed, one of the seven dearly sins about which we are warned, but it seems likely that Mr. Gibson had taken more than a few large sips of demon rum or whatever hootch that strikes his fancy.

HE THREATENED TO KILL HER! SHE'S ENTITLED TO IT ALL, as far as I'm concerned. Leave him without a fucking nickel. Hell, maybe some time in prison would straighten him out.

It also appears that the thuggish Gibson heard on the tapes is not the Mel Gibson his friends and colleagues, and his regrettably soon-to-be ex-wife know … and love.

Regrettably? I'm sorry, perhaps I did not type that last bit in large enough font: HE THREATENED TO KILL HER, YOU NUTJOB! RESTRAINING ORDERS ALL AROUND! He loves her like OJ loved Nicole, you bent-as-a- pretzel consumer of lavender scented baby powders.

So one is left with the impression that the new Mr. Gibson was probably born within the contents of a bottle of booze, as well as a seething resentment that he now believes the lady of his recent choice – the mother of his eighth child, ain’t no lady.

You're right. That was her threatening her own life. If she were a real lady, she would just take the drunkard's abuse.

That Mel Gibson is bad news for himself and those around him. That Mel Gibson is the Mel Gibson, fanatically faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, if not its hierarchy, and a victim of his confusion with what he views as the tinkering with doctrine and practice that in his view has resulted from Vatican II and imposed on the faithful by radical elements within Holy Mother Church.

Wha...? What? Is...What?

Taking that stance, along with the father he loves and admires, has set him at odds with the Vatican, and no doubt with himself and what we have seen recently is, in my humble opinion, a direct result of the inner conflict between faithful Catholic and his rebellious nature.

Hold on, my head is going to explode. The logic here is of a non-earth type.

Like many traditionalist Catholics, he has been deprived of certitude and set adrift, and that’s a prescription for an inner chaos that often slips it moors and explodes amidst those around him.

As an altar boy from the age of seven until I was fourteen,

"...and, boy, is my ass sore!" (That was too easy. Sorry.)

...and a faithful Catholic since I found the disruption since Vatican II to be at the very least unsettling, but unlike Mel Gibson I was reassured by the certain knowledge that the Church is always and everywhere guided by the Holy Spirit, and I’m not about to argue with the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, even when it appears to my mortal mind that He has goofed, or that his servants in Rome don’t know what the hell they are doing.

"Of course, by 'certain knowledge,' I mean completely unfounded opinion. Also, I'm really good at cognitive dissonance."

Sooner or later things get back on track and in the meantime the more confused among us simply have to sit back and wait for the abuses that followed Vatican II get straighten out.

Wait, VATICAN II threatened Gibson's wife?

Getting back to Mel Gibson,

Meanwhile, in the first essay...

it is instructive to listen to his wife, now in the process of divorcing, leap to his defense. In the midst of the traditional male mid-life crisis, he’s damn lucky to have such a wife, even one he has publicly dumped such as Robyn Gibson. Most women publicly betrayed by the father of her seven children would be more likely to have taken the opportunity to take a cudgel and beat his brains out with it.

Or "put him in the garden," I believe is how he put it. I have no idea what you are saying anymore.

Anyway, I’m not about to join the lynch mob [that is] now gathering around Mel Gibson.

BARABUS! GIVE US BARABUS!

He remains in my mind, a good and decent man to whom the world is indebted for giving us the magnificent “Passion of the Christ”.

There's something for you in this video, Phil:

Sure, he’s a sinner, but then so am I, and so are you. We’re just not in the public eye where even our most venial sins are grist for the media mill.

What part of threatening to murder someone, and apparently punching a woman holding a child is "venial". You are damaged. Fucking damaged.

He is in my prayers and should be in yours.

I pray every day that he falls down stairs and gets all Christopher Reeve, and every moment he is not falling down stairs is an affront to the universe.

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

Bill Donohue disease confirmed.

HJ