In Other News

Thanks to the DPLA, images like this are accessible to all!

The DPLA has launched, yesterday while I was too busy presenting at a conference to join in the festive announcements across the history blogosphere. The DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) is an ambitious project which casts itself as the first step toward a global, free access library that will include the fullest possible amount of material (i.e. everything not covered by copyright). It is a social leveling project as much as an intellectual endeavor, allowing students at community colleges, in poorer regions of this country and eventually the world, and all the academically disadvantaged to have access to archives at places like Harvard. Relying on a variety of charitable institutions, the DPLA in its present form is a centralizing service that allows scholars--or curious web browsers--to search across a wide range of participating institutions in a single place and be linked directly to the material in those archives. It promises be, whether or not it fulfills its utopian vision of an equal academic play field, a tremendous resource for research (even as it is also likely to thwart the efforts of young scholars trying to think up excuses to get research funding to visit Boston). A link to the DPLA can now be found enshrined on my Resources page.

In less exciting news, the church institutional continues to disgrace itself on a variety of fronts. The Episcopal Church has won a "victory" in its civil case against itself before the Virginia Supreme Court.

The panel affirmed a lower court’s decision that the 3,000-member congregation, which voted in 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church, did not have the right to keep the sprawling property known as the Falls Church.

The Falls Church property is one of the country’s largest Episcopal churches and is a central landmark in downtown Falls Church.

The breakaway congregation, now called the Falls Church Anglican, has been worshiping in the Bishop O’Connell High School auditorium in Arlington County while it sought to overturn the Fairfax County Circuit Court decision from last year.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court affirmed that the property was rightly given to the mainline denomination but said some of the nearly $3 million in church coffers belongs to the Falls Church Anglican congregation.

I put "victory" in scare quotes because it hardly seems appropriate to call either side victorious when both have so miserably failed the basic standard of Christian charity and forbearance, applied particularly to this situation by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6. "Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?" Probably because Paul's churches never had anything like three million dollars in its "church coffers." If it did, maybe Paul wouldn't have been so quick on the draw with that "to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat to you" nonsense.

The Orthodox Church global is having its own struggles. At the end of a long saga that has witnessed significantly more diligence than Catholic handling of sexual misconduct, Bishop Matthias has resigned. The head of the Chicago diocese of the Orthodox Church in America could no longer bear the odium of his sexual misconduct scandal and finally yielded to pressure from above to step down. In a deferential address--a momentary lapse from his conspiratorial theories about a liberal plot to manufacture his ouster--he expressed hope that "my stepping down will end the ordeal, allowing the diocese to move toward healing," and asked "for everyone's forgiveness for my failings, my mistakes and sins." He then graciously offered to forgive everyone else, for what is not entirely clear. Maybe he forgives the woman who misunderstood his "inappropriate words that I thought were being received as humorous." That certainly is the way this sincere apology feels: "I am sorry that my kindness and generosity to this person was viewed with suspicion and ulterior motives." Growing up, when I made apologies like that I got slapped. I suppose being stripped of your diocese is the ecclesiastical equivalent.

In Prague, a much bigger fish has been fried by a much sexier scandal. Metropolitan Krystof, the head of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, has stepped down after scandal broke about his lascivious life. The prelate is alleged to have had an affair with the wife of one of his priest's and of fathering numerous illegitimate children. With all the talk of progress in Europe, it seems they are still very much medieval over there.

In Other News

When I went to bed last night, Barack Obama was president, Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, and Democrats controlled the Senate. When I woke up this morning, Barack Obama was president, Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, and Democrats controlled the Senate. More than a year of persistent hue and cry, an anticlimax, and now, with any luck, a swift denouement. Meanwhile, to the disinterested surprise of Americans, the rest of the world has continued to turn while they beat their heads against a political brick wall.

Copts have just selected a new pope at one of the most critical junctures in modern Coptic history. The new leader, Pope Theodoros II, has rejected the political activism of his predecessor and is encouraging the church to follow his lead:

“The most important thing is for the church to go back and live consistently within the spiritual boundaries because this is its main work, spiritual work,” the bishop said, and he promised to begin a process of “rearranging the house from the inside” and “pushing new blood” after his installation later this month as Pope Tawadros II. Interviewed on Coptic television recently, he struck a new tone by including as his priorities “living with our brothers, the Muslims” and “the responsibility of preserving our shared life.”

“Integrating in the society is a fundamental scriptural Christian trait,” Bishop Tawadros said then. “This integration is a must — moderate constructive integration,” he added. “All of us, as Egyptians, have to participate.”

This seems to be fine by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood who have encouraged the new primate "to “support the Islamic Shariaa,” to “let go of the seculars”, and to “revoke the Church’s political role.”"

In other parts of the Muslim world, Christians are facing more direct challenges from the government. Christians in Malaysia are being "converted" to Islam without their consent on government roles simply because of their names.

Bumiputra Christians in Sabah continue to be “converted to Islam” by the National Registration Department (NRD) simply because they have “bin” and “binti” in their names. Sabah churches are seeking urgent solutions to the crisis but none seems to be in sight, Bob Teoh writes in My Sinchew.

The NRD has made it clear it would continue to list Bumiputera Christians in Sabah as Muslims as long as they are known by bin or binti. It would also not rectify past entry errors by way of changing the religion listing back to Christianity in the identity cards (MyKad) of those affected. The NRD would only act upon an order by a Syariah High Court to determine whether those Bumiputera Christians whom it had listed as Muslims are not Muslims indeed.

The implications of this are far ranging--not least because these "Muslims" are not legally allowed to marry the Christians in their own community--and the hurdles the government has thrown up to rectify the error are numerous. What makes this more serious than a minor bureaucratic foul-up, however, is that perennial problem of apostasy in Islam. There is no permissible way to cease to be a Muslim, a conundrum which has found itself institutionalized in the racial-religious identity cards of Malaysia.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sitting on the supposed burial site of Jesus, is the site of yet more controversy, this time over the more mundane matter of an unpaid water bill. The hub for Christian pilgrimage insists that it has never paid water bills as part of an unstated agreement with the utility company. Hagihon, the water company, is no longer content to receive nothing for something and has frozen the church's assests until the $2.3 million in back bills is paid.

"We trust God and hope that people will help us," [the General Secretary of the Patriarchate, Archbishop of Constantina Aristarchos] said, adding that the Patriarchate has sent letters to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tension in the Christian world comes home with still more revelations from the Orthodox Church in America. After much publicity and dutiful investigation, church officials have released their findings about the suspended bishop accused of sexual misconduct:

Text messages and emails sent by the bishop of the Orthodox Church in America’s Diocese of the Midwest did constitute sexual misconduct, according to a letter posted to the church’s website Sunday...

“I wish that I could convince all of you what I am certain of in my heart — that conscious motives behind my interaction with this woman were not impure,” [the accused bishop] Matthias wrote. “But, I know that only active, demonstrated repentance — confession of my sins, pursuit of the means of changing, and a resulting change in conduct — will be convincing.”

Unlike the Catholic stereotype of furtive reshuffling, the OCA has embraced a more public but no less Christian program of rehabilitation and penance. Matthias will ask forgiveness from the victim directly, be admitted to a residential therapeutic program, and submit to a “focused period of time under the guidance of a peer bishop to examine, articulate and provide concrete direction in managing the expectations and accompanying spiritual, emotional and interpersonal challenges of exercising the office of the bishop.”

And more besides. If only we had directed that one billion dollars to affecting actual change in the world. But, as always, where our treasure is indicates where our heart is. Money is always hard to find except when it comes to war and politics. If that doesn't indicate their affinity, perhaps nothing will.

Another One Bites the Dust

By which I mean that another priest in the Orthodox Church in America has been removed as part of what appears to be a broader effort to shake the dust out of the hierarchical rugs, so to speak. Says the Chicago Tribune:

The local bishop of the Orthodox Church in America has been placed on administrative leave amid allegations of "inappropriate" behavior with a woman...

In a letter to parishioners, Bishop Matthias, 63, denied the accusations, which he said came to light in a formal complaint submitted to the church last week.

"The allegations are that I made unwelcome written and spoken comments to a woman that she regarded as an inappropriate crossing of personal boundaries and an abuse of my pastoral authority," he wrote.

Metropolitan Jonah, of course, was ousted not so very long ago over allegations that he protected another priest on an even more serious charge, rape. Jonah, curiously enough, is a Chicago native.

There are a number of ways to interpret the broader trends at work here in light of this latest high profile discipline. The first--most amusing and least substantial--is to make lighthearted note of the perennial corruption that is as essential to Chicago identity as wind and cursed baseball. More seriously, and more dangerously, it is easy to allow ourselves to slip into the assumption that this is indicative of widespread corruption in the church, sexual deviancy on the scale of, if of a different type than, was seen in the Roman Catholic Church. That's possible, of course, and the faithful should be careful not to let pious devotion interfere with a serious consideration of that possibility.

It is just as likely, if not more consistent with the facts thus far, that what is being seen in the OCA right now is exactly the kind of diligence and constructive transparency that the public as well as parishioners want from their clergy. This is not a witch hunt; the bishop is question is on leave pending further investigation. There certainly has been no rush to rash judgment. The wheels of bureaucracies, and church bureaucracies in particular, spin slowly. Nevertheless, the OCA seems to be making a concerted and public effort to clean house, an effort which can and should be met with a cautious and measured optimism. Maybe, just maybe, when they say they have learned from the mistakes of others, they mean it.

That'll Teach You to Play by the Rules, Penn State

The verdict is in, the dust has settled, and, guess what, people are outraged. And why shouldn't they be? After all, the recent sanctions handed down by the NCAA are just one more in a string of knee-jerk reactions from the public on the final great unifying force for Americans, sex abuse scandals.

The punishment begins with a sixty million dollar fine. This and this alone seems like an appropriate punishment, and the number could have been much higher. That sum, equal to only one year of Penn State football revenue, will come exclusively from the athletics fund and will be used exclusively to fund sex abuse charities across the country. There is a logical connection here between the sexual abuse which was, to some extent, permitted by some members of the institution and the consequence for that complicity. From there, the NCAA added a loss of athletic scholarships and a four year post season ban, which is non-sensical but expected. Perhaps it may have some value as a deterrent, assuming, of course, that there are institutions out there who actually care more about the integrity of their football program than about pedophiles in their midst as so many fast-tongued commentators are implying about Penn State.

The real source of unrest, both mine and the Penn State community's, is the nullification of fourteen years of wins. The NCAA, in their inscrutable wisdom, decided that they would begin with the first abuse allegation and just erase the history of Penn State football from then until the present. Explain to me, who does that serve? Certainly not the victims, unlike the sixty million dollars about to flood abuse charities. And who does it punish? Not Sandusky, who has the tender affection of his fellow prisoners to look forward to as punishment. Not anyone in the administration who may have been complicit, since they have all been indicted, forced out, or fired.

It actually is pretty obvious who the revision of history is meant to penalize. None other than Joe Paterno, who, in losing those wins, has forever lost his place as the winningest coach in major college football. If you'll pardon the indelicacy, I'd like to congratulate the NCAA on coming as close as imaginable to literally using their authority to beat a dead horse. For my part, I agree with the Paterno family, that JoePa continues to be presumed guilty until proven innocent:

The point of due process is to protect against this sort of reflexive action. Joe Paterno was never interviewed by the University or the Freeh Group. His counsel has not been able to interview key witnesses as they are represented by counsel related to ongoing litigation. We have had no access to the records reviewed by the Freeh group. The NCAA never contacted our family or our legal counsel. And the fact that several parties have pending trials that could produce evidence and testimony relevant to this matter has been totally discounted.

Unfortunately all of these facts have been ignored by the NCAA, the Freeh Group and the University.

But let's say that Paterno is every bit as guilty as the most rabid conspiracy theorist believes him to be. You tear down his statue. You un-paint his halo. You--which is to say, Nike, Brown, the Big Ten, and so many more--blot out his name. Now you re-write history just to strip him of his records. What is this obsession with punishing the dead? He's dead! Dead and buried. It makes it very difficult to take all this self-righteous scapegoating very seriously when the scapegoat has already been slaughtered. The fact that an organization the magnitude of the NCAA has felt the need to jump on the bandwagon and actively repudiate Joe Paterno in the sternest way it knows how shows just how little courage and conviction remains in the world.

Stripping Penn State of those wins serves no purpose, except to satisfy the obligatory indignation of the corporations and the masses to whom they peddle their wares. It certainly doesn't actually bother the dearly departed Paterno (though it seems a trifle cruel to his entirely innocent family who have to suffer through the public flogging of his corpse). Instead, it sends a message to past and future players of Penn State, that their efforts on the field, the victories they achieve by the sweat of their brow, the brutality they subject their bodies to, are all in the hands of a fickle overlord who, at any moment, may wave a wand and erase them. "This is not a football related issue. We didn't cheat at football and they shouldn't take our wins," observed a Penn State freshman. That simple, off-the-cuff logic has all the rational force necessary to overturn the NCAA calculated decision.

Nevermind that football doesn't really matter. Nevermind the pious but empty cries for "justice" that thinly mask bloodlust. The principle at stake here is fairness and a rational ordering of society. This ruling proudly announces the message that you can do everything right, play by all the rules (as the players did), and you can still be punished. Punished for someone else's crime. Punished to satiate a media fueled public outrage. Punished retroactively and without recourse to appeal. That, to me, is a greater catalyst for evil than leniency. After all, if they can come for you anyway, why be good to begin with?

Lessons from Jerry Sandusky and Pedophile Priests

This sentiment, expressed with various degrees of intensity, popped up regularly in public responses and official statements regarding the recent resignation of Metropolitan Jonah from his position as primate of the Orthodox Church in America:

They finally got him. What they don’t understand is that they probably signed the OCA’s death warrant in so doing...because the sleazy, corrupt way the Synod has handled this from the beginning shows them to be a pack of ravening wolves.

That's actually Rod Dreher over at the American Conservative, and he doesn't get any nicer about it: "I wish he had gone out like Samson instead of yielding to this pack of wild dogs. But what’s done is done. And what was done is dirty. Filthy." Even if others didn't feel the need to get that heated, there was a sense that Jonah was a crusader who was making the Orthodox relevant in the twenty-first century Christian social and political landscape. Having followed Mark Stokoe over at OCA News for years, my reaction was decidedly less indignant.

As more information begins to surface, it would appear that perhaps Dreher and others should temper their criticism of the Synod. It seems their primary motivation was concern over the possible criminal sexual behavior of a priest appointed by Jonah and the Metropolitan's questionable attempts to conceal it:

"Metropolitan Jonah has repeatedly refused to act with prudence, in concert with his fellow bishops, in accordance with the Holy Synod's policies," the synod said in a statement.

"In light of the recent widely publicized criminal cases involving sexual abuse at Penn State and in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and the Kansas City Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, the extent of the risk of liability to which Metropolitan Jonah has exposed the church cannot be overstated," it said...

"At some time after his enthronement as our primate, Metropolitan Jonah unilaterally accepted into the OCA a priest known to him and others to be . . . severely abusing alcohol, which more than once was coupled with episodes of violence and threats toward women," the synod said.

These episodes included the "discharge of a firearm" and the "brandishing of a knife," which led to the man's arrest. In 2010, he was alleged "to have committed a rape against a woman."

Although informed of the rape allegation in February, Jonah "neither investigated, nor told his brother bishops," and did not report the incident to police or church lawyers, according to the synod.

In other words, the Synod is giving every appearance of doing exactly what people, in hindsight, wished that the Catholic Church and the administration at Penn State had done when their was suspicion of misconduct by their authority figures. They are cooperating with local law enforcement, being transparent about the accusation (save for releasing the priest's name), and removing the rogue administrator who allowed an accused rapist to be ordained in the OCA in the first place. And the revelations about Jonah just get worse:

When the woman reported her alleged rape to police, however, she and a family member were admonished by unnamed church officials "that their salvation depended on their silence."

As recently as last week, the synod reported Monday, Jonah was "regularly communicating" with the person who was instructing the woman to keep quiet.

Furthermore, it said, Jonah first encouraged the priest to pursue a military chaplaincy "without informing the military recruiter of any of the priest's problems," and then allowed the man to enter another Orthodox jurisdiction while assuring it there were "no canonical impediments" to a transfer.

I'm quite certain there were other factors involved in his removal, other less compelling reasons, but I can't imagine anyone reading that and thinking that the Synod is a pack of ravening wolves who have driven out the great hope of the Orthodox Church in America. If anything, the information now available shows the tremendous wisdom of the Synod in not allowing what's happened to the Catholic Church and to Penn State to happen to the Orthodox.

Trustees Continue to Rationalize Paterno Firing

The Penn State board of trustees are at it again, reverse-engineering excuses for firing Joe Paterno in the frenzied weeks following the Sandusky sex abuse scandal. Following the tried-and-true policy of shoot first, ask questions later, the powers that be chose to dismiss Paterno unceremoniously over the phone in the middle of the season rather than allowing him to retire a few months later (or even giving him the simple courtesy of firing him in person). When we last heard from the board of trustees, they explained to an expectant public that the firing had taken place because they did not feel that Paterno could effectively carry on as coach in the midst of the scandal. "Paterno could not be expected to continue to effectively perform his duties and that it was in the best interests of the University to make an immediate change in his status."

An outraged but reasonable public and an abysmal conclusion to the football season (8-1 before Paterno's dismissal; 1-3 after) combined to make that kind of rationalization insufficient. Now the board of trustees is taking a more aggressive tack, claiming that Paterno's fulfillment of his legal duties actually amounted to a failure on his part, demonstrating the remarkable ease with which the living are willing to speak ill of the dead. "We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno." In other words, that Paterno did what was required of him and did not have the benefit of hindsight to indicate that he would be required to do more, represented the leadership deficiencies in a man who had been a leader in the entire State College community for decades.

According to trustee Keith Eckel, “Many people have indicated that they did not understand, and this is our last attempt to try to make it as clear as possible.” Curiously, many people still don't understand even this last attempt; if this is as clear as it is possible to make the motivation, that says something about the clarity of the trustees thinking, both at the time and as they try to reconstruct a viable excuse in retrospect. Paterno's lawyer, Wick Sollers, is among those who think that this newest explanation only makes clearer the true, rather than the professed, motivation for Paterno's firing: "to deflect criticism of their leadership by trying to focus the blame on Joe Paterno. This is not fair to Joe’s legacy; it is not consistent with the facts; and it does not serve the best interests of the University...The Board’s latest statement reaffirms that they did not conduct a thorough investigation of their own and engaged in a rush to judgment." Sollers is unsure why the board "believes it is necessary and appropriate to explain—for the fourth or fifth time—why they fired Joe Paterno so suddenly and unjustifiably on Nov. 9, 2011."

Maybe it would benefit everyone to return to the moment of Paterno's untimely demise (the one before his ultimate untimely demise) and consider what the board had to say about its motives then. "'I’m not sure I can tell you specifically,' board vice chair John Surma replied when asked at a packed news conference why Paterno had to be fired immediately. 'In our view, we thought change now was necessary.'" There you have it, the unvarnished truth. The board had no idea why they needed to dismiss Paterno without investigation, without cause, and without the coolness of reasoning that even a moment's delay may have prompted. They felt it needed to be done, because they felt the rising heat of controversy and felt compelled to make a burnt offering of the choicest calf. Everything that came after that has been an effort to self-justify in the cold light of hindsight.

The sick irony, sickest of all ironies, is that from the grave Paterno is proving a model of leadership for the board. When he looked back on his actions with the benefit of full knowledge and found them wanting, he admitted his shortcomings like a man and expressed regret. Would that the board could emulate that kind of leadership.

"Answers" Given in JoePa Firing

Finally, in the wake of an angry town hall meeting, the powers-that-be in the Joe Paterno firing have offered (what they considered to be) answers to the pressing questions on our minds:

According to the statement, after Paterno announced Nov. 9 he would retire at the conclusion of the 2011 season, the board decided that "given the nature of the serious allegations ... and the extraordinary circumstances then facing the University, ... Paterno could not be expected to continue to effectively perform his duties and that it was in the best interests of the University to make an immediate change in his status."

"Therefore, the Board acted to remove Coach Paterno from his position as Head Football Coach effective as of that date," read the statement issued by board chairman Steve Garban and vice chairman John Surma.

Let's pretend for a moment that the above is even a defensible cause for dismissal. The "answer" is still unsatisfying on so many levels. Why did you dismiss him over the phone? Why have you consciously distanced yourself from his image? Why is Joe Paterno merchandise no longer being sold by Penn State retailers? Also--and we can stop our pretending now--what on earth would make anyone think that an interim would "effectively perform his duties" any better than Joe Paterno could, especially since the authorities specifically said that Paterno was not an object of the investigation? It seems we are destined to be less and less satisfied the more and more information we get.

Innocent Until Proven Proximate

The name "JoePa" used to evoke feelings of warmth and nostalgia, almost of filial affection for the man who stood as the grandfather figure for all college athletics. Now, it seems to warrant nothing but scorn. Consider one particularly heinous example from Dan Bernstein, a writer for CBS Chicago. Upon reading a letter of support for Penn State and Paterno signed by hundreds of former Penn State athletes, Bernstein had this interpretation of their motives: "Apparently because you don’t mind child-rape. And because Paterno is almost dead, thankfully." Fortunately, there are still some who are willing to take a more reasoned approach to examining the Penn State scandal, Paterno's role in it, and the coach's legacy to the university and the sport now that, having turned 85, he is plagued by more trivial matters like pelvic fractures and cancer. Even better, there appears to be evidence to support a more measured assessment of JoePa's "guilt." Thomas L. Day--a graduate of 2003 Penn State University, a native of State College, Pa., and a former student and volunteer in the Second Mile program--is by no means a JoePa fanatic, but he thinks it is important to get one thing straight:

Read these words carefully: Joe Paterno, in March of 2002, after being told by a graduate assistant coach that he had witnessed longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky allegedly raping a young boy in the football team's facility the night before, notified the police. In fact, Paterno discussed what he learned with the man, Gary Schultz, who had administrative control of the Penn State police.

The point people are missing is that the Penn State police are different than most campus police forces. They are a real police force. They carry guns. They aren't rent-a-cops. They have jurisdiction over the campus, which includes the Penn State football offices.

In 1953, Penn State President Milton Eisenhower (brother of Dwight D.) changed the name of the campus to "University Park," and created a separate unincorporated community within the campus. When Paterno notified Schultz of what he had been told, he was notifying an appropriate authority.

Day's article is not the kind of unqualified exoneration that one might expect from a JoePa devotee. Day believes that Paterno should have been fired--not because he did anything wrong but because, in spite of doing things right, other people nearby did bad things. That is, of course, my less-than-detached restatement of his argument. Day preferred to word it like this: "When something goes horribly wrong under the purview of leaders, the leaders should be held accountable, even though they may not be directly at fault. This is something many Penn Staters have failed to understand." Maybe, like myself, "Penn Staters" have a funny aversion to the innocent being punished for the crimes of the guilty. Or maybe they have grave objections to the way the desperate, scrambling, self-conscious powers-that-be decided to execute (and that word is so pointedly appropriate) their plan to rid themselves of JoePa, or to the low, personal PR potshots that have been taken, such as removing his name from the Big Ten trophy or refusing to sell JoePa merchandise in campus stores. Regardless, Day does make a point to give a balanced assessment of what actually happened (as far as we know) and to evaluate Paterno's behavior with a more measured demeanor than, for example, Jemele Hill. Wrote Day:

The truth is that there isn't much more Joe Paterno could have done to prevent the alleged assaults that happened after March of 2002. I have no doubt that there are points along the eight-year timeline of this scandal where Paterno could have, and should have, acted differently -- Paterno himself has acknowledged as such. But nobody bats 1.000 in these situations...

The question is did Joe Paterno act in good faith, especially in March of 2002? Yes, Joe Paterno did. Paterno's actions were generally in line with how most reasonable people would act if put in the same situation. Paterno could not have made a citizen's arrest. At some point in 2002, Paterno was likely told that there would be no further action against Sandusky; after that point, Paterno appears to have ended association with his longtime friend and assistant.

So why the far flung institutional, media, and public pillorying of a man who six months ago received nothing but universal quasi-religious reverence from all of the above? Day asks the same question to conclude his article: "Before we say goodbye to Paterno, let's rationally reassess his legacy, and explore why exactly we rushed to an uninformed judgment of this man." For my part, I hope we reassess quickly, or else we may not have time, as a society, to apologize to the cancer-ridden octogenarian for stripping everything away from him--his career, his legacy, and, most importantly, a national love and respect--all, it would appear, because he is guilty by mere proximity to a crime.

The End of an Era

Goodbye, JoePa.

The big question that keeps running through my mind is "why?" What did JoePa do to deserve a perfunctory phone call bringing an even more perfunctory end to the most storied career in college football history? After all, he did what was legally required of him, which is precisely why there are no charges against him. He is a football coach and not a detective. When an allegation came across his desk--one of what we should imagine were countless accusations, suppositions, and rumors to be reported to him over 46 years--he reported it to the people whose job it was to launch an investigation. Could he have done more? Of course. Hindsight has a beautiful clarity to it. (Imagine if Sandusky were innocent and JoePa had led a crusade slandering a civic leader and founder of a charitable organization. Would we be any less judgmental then, armed as we are with afterthought?) The fact that JoePa himself recognizes, in retrospect, that he could have done more and offered as a voluntary penance his own retirement ought to have been enough. The difference would have been allowing a man who has revolutionized the public image of your university (so that people even care if there is a scandal there) and dedicated more than half of his life to developing and mentoring college athletes to coach four more games.

That apparently seemed like too magnanimous a path to the board of trustees. Why? What was JoePa's crime?

“I’m not sure I can tell you specifically,” board vice chair John Surma replied when asked at a packed news conference why Paterno had to be fired immediately. “In our view, we thought change now was necessary.”

Well that's a little vague. Perhaps they could clarify for us why they felt the need to eschew all courtesy and professionalism and destroy a four decade career over the phone.

Asked why he was fired over the phone, Surma said, “We were unable to find a way to do that in person without causing further distraction.”

So, in short, they remove the greatest fixture in college sports, ultimately confound the university's fundraising ability, athletic ability, and character, and incite mob violence, and their reasoning for doing it was "I don't know" and for doing it the way they did "It seemed convenient."

It all leaves me feeling a little unsatisfied. The victims have not been healed, the perpetrators have not been punished, and Happy Valley is no happier. I hope, in addition, that the board of trustees have trouble sleeping tonight.

I enjoy the fact that unfaithful spouses sometimes give each other AIDS and die.

Do you know what drives me crazy? People who hate homosexuals.

This has been a long standing sentiment, but this particular thought was sparked by an incident that occurred recently in Arkansas (where, I am proud to say, I received much of my fine edjumication). The Huffington Post (I know, but bear with me) posted this report:

An Arkansas School Board member recently launched an inflammatory anti-gay tirade on Facebook that ran the gamut from basic bigoted slurs, to encouraging "f*gs" to commit suicide and announcing that he'd disown his own children if they were gay.

My initial thought was to wonder just what kind of "tirade" this was and whether or not the report was just more media sensationalism. But no. Here is quote from Clint McCance himself:

"Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE."

In this quote really lies my major problem with people like this. For some reason, there are people in this world who think that sin is a justification for hate, which is ironic since that hate they are seeking to justify is itself a sin. It isn't every sin of course, because then there would be a lot of self-hatred (though I suspect there is). It's only homosexuality. Liars we'll forgive. Lechers we'll forgive. If you're Andre Leonard you'll even readily forgive pederasts. But if you are a homosexual, then for McCance you ought to commit suicide and for Leonard you ought to get AIDS.

It isn't even simply the fact that this view is misguided which really bothers me the most. After all, a lot of people are misguided (going on seven billion). What drives me up a wall is that people like Leonard, McCance, and Phelps make it that much harder for people to operate in a position of responsible Christian ethics, which includes both moral purity and love. I cannot adhere to the belief that God intends for sexuality to be expressed exclusively in heterosexual marriages without having attached to that position images of foul mouthed picketers and grammatically incorrect tirades. (Incidentally, was anyone else really concerned that a school board member used the term "thereselves?") People are driven by those images to the opposite extreme, which says that homosexual behavior must somehow be morally admissible because to think otherwise is to be a backward, hateful bigot.

It leaves me (and certainly countless other Christians) in the position of wanting to suggest that homosexual behavior is a sin that should be corrected but being unable to do so without having read into that suggestion more than is really there. I can say that marital infidelity is wrong. I can say that premarital sex is wrong. I can say that polygamy is wrong. But to say that homosexuality is wrong is to open yourself to a wealth or largely inapplicable criticism.

It is perhaps intrinsic to my position that it should not have a loud voice and therefore should be steamrolled by the cacophonous interchange of more boisterous positions, but I would just like to state for the record that I believe that:

• God intends sex to be between one man and one woman in the confines of a single marriage for the duration of a lifetime.
• Deviation from that divine intent is sinful.
• It is morally irresponsible to acquiesce to sin.

In contrast, I do not believe that:

• Homosexuality is more sinful than the sins which I struggle to overcome.
• Grace is insufficient to cover homosexuality.
• Sin in any way absolves Christians of showing the full extent of their love to one another.

On that last point, I would add that I do not:

• Want homosexuals to kill themselves.
• Hope that homosexuals get AIDS and die.
• Believe that God is killing American soldiers as punishment for homosexuality. (At the risk of being inflammatory, it seems to me that if anything, dying at war is a natural - and somewhat obvious - punishment for being at war.)

And while I know that there are many who do not share my clearly superhuman ability to divorce my sexual ethics convictions from politics, I will also add that I think it is directly contrary to the basic principles on which the American government was founded that:

• Homosexuals should be denied the civil benefits afforded to heterosexual couples.
• Homosexuals should be discharged from the military because their sexual preference has been revealed.
• Homosexuals should be discriminated against in any way in the public sphere on the basis of their sexual proclivities.

Take that for what it is worth, but I cannot help being frustrated that on the basis of the above affirmations that I should be lumped into the same category - even broadly - as people like this:

I like that f*gs cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it.

I am against "it" but no more than I am against people like you, Clint McCance.