wiffleballhero said:
The sins of the son should not be the burden of the father, but so too should the father not foot the son's legal bill. That is the tipping point for me. I could have maybe gone forward had he at least stopped defending the guy, but he has been and continues to be an enabler.
I can't believe I'm hearing people say that Remy should have somehow not paid for his son's legal needs. Leaving aside the fact that any parent with the means would do the same for their child no matter what they were accused of - do we not believe in right to counsel? On
this board, perhaps 30% of whose membership are attorneys? Even the most conservative, fire-and-brimstone person on issues of crime and punishment should at least appreciate that it's not the State paying for a public defender, and thus coming out of their pockets. But more importantly: Give the Devil benefit of law, for your own sake.
So, if he was otherwise fit to keep his job absent his son's actions, and if he was otherwise not entangled in his son's nefarious acts, it's somehow Jerry Remy's
paying of legal bills that disqualify him from continuing to (mostly) entertain you for 162 games a year? I can't fathom the logic that would support that point of view.
"Stopped defending the guy" - yeah, he's offering no excuses for his son's actions. He's not a supporter of domestic violence, nor is he even in any denial or bargaining phases with his grief over the effective loss of his son's life, liberty, and/or soul. Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty, meanwhile, is
unapologetic about his gay-hating, and is still on the air. Jerry has acknowledged the terrible tragedy his son has wrought, gone on radio to further explain the situation, and yet somehow needs to fall on his own sword, too? Those are some pretty lofty standards you expect of public figures. I wonder how many of us could meet them. Let he who is without sin...
The Allented Mr Ripley said:
The V&N irony here is that your posting history credits being gay to Nurture and being a batterer to Nature.
In other words, you're more forgiving of the woman beater.
Leaving aside the idea that we should avoid ad-hominem arguments on a board of this caliber... I think it's fair to credit P91 with a total change of heart over the last few years when it comes to issues of gay equality. He now fully supports gay rights, as far as I have heard, and furthermore he attributes that to arguments he heard on V&N which he found persuasive. Good Keynesian that he is, perhaps.
If we're going to talk of the subject of forgiveness, I'd suggest that P91 deserves some public praise for his coming-around on that. I mean, maybe we don't kill the fatted calf, but our brother here was lost, and is found, and it is
appropriate to be glad. I'd like to hope that I'm capable of reversing my opinion if I ever realize I'm so wrong about such a deeply-held belief.
So this criticism of his post is unfair in a couple respects - inaccurate that he doesn't attribute being gay to nurture, incomplete in that it's an oversimplification of a grossly complex Nature/Nurture debate (in either instance), and fallacious in that his own beliefs have no bearing on the accuracy of what he's claiming (which is, simply, that Jerry Remy might not even deserve criticism
as a parent for his son's actions, nevermind whether he should bear responsibility in his professional role).