August 1, 2006
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Mel Gibson
As you probably know, Mel Gibson was recently arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. He made some anti-Semitic slurs in his drunkenness to the Jewish officer who arrested him. Mel later apologized for his statements, saying…
“There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.
I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.
The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.
I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.”
Is Mel Gibson’s apology sincere?
Comments (25)
It’s hard to say if Mr. Gibson is sincere or not based on his public apologies and his worn out publicity person trying to recover and cover tracks. I think this is one that requires action of some sort. Words are not enough. I think action is needed. I saw a non scientific poll the other day that had over 75% of people saying this incident was not/will not change their opinion of him. While his remarks are not Christian or decent or kind it is important to remember that this information would not have made the news had he not been famous. We as Americans (me at the top of the list) put too much emphasis on what Hollywood people do or think. It’s a sickness really.
Will he stop being one of my favorite actors? No. Will I continue to see his movies? Yes. Do I respect him as an actor a little less based upon this incident? No. Do I respect him as a person a little less based upon this incident? Yes.
wow. i saw something about his recent occurrance. i didn’t know it was that though. hmm…is mel really sorry? i dunno. i bet that he is sorry. sorry for what though? sorry this happened and such a big deal came about. or sorry that he was foolish enough to do this. who knows. but being drunk and Jesus are not parallel with each other.
as for haircuts, i know what you are talkin about. it is extremely hard to get consistent good haircuts. i usually come away from the place disgusted with what happened. but i’m happy with todays. so i probably won’t be next time.
Your moms sincere
This is tough one. We’ve been talking about it in the newsroom this evening. I found myself giving him the benefit of the doubt, but then I wondered if that’s because I think he’s a believer who has tried to spread God’s message. Would I be as forgiving to another celebrity, such as Angelina Jolie, who has never professed faith in God? That made me feel bad about how judgmental I can be (make sense?) Part of me wonders if there isn’t a little bit of
anti-semitism in him. Drinking makes you less inhibited, so your more likely to say things you wouldn’s say when you’re sober. I could be wrong though. If he wasn’t a celebrity, no one would have ever heard about, or maybe even cared about, this incident. So, I think the apology might have been more of a ‘I need to save face’ apology than a genuine one. However, sometimes God has to slap us in the face to make us see we have a problem. Then we start to feel sorry for what we’ve done.
So, what do you think?
“I welcome his words. And I hope and pray that they are sincere and heartfelt,” but Gibson needs to show “tangible actions” of repentance, said Rabbi Mark S. Diamond of the 280-member Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
i agree with this guy and Fargs. he could say anything and i would be hesitant to believe him but if he makes his words good by his actions then he was sincere.
I think he is, but then I have a bias because I admire his work so much. I just can’t think of why he would even bother if he weren’t sincere. I mean, how many drunken men make racist or chauvinistic remarks that never get apologized for? The media doesn’t even make a big deal about those, but I’m willing to bet it is extremely common.
I am just surprised that a celebrity like himself would make that comment in the first place unless it was intentional. So, I am not sure his apology is sincere.
ryc: poop? ewwww, no thank you – i will take the pain. lol.
If he follows through with actions I would have to say he is sincere. Most celebrities would not even bother with an apology. It is things like this that make me glad I am not a celebrity.
RYC: I love the feeling of getting lost while playing music. Thanks Pete, I appreciate your helping me out and I enjoyed reading your list.
wow Pete…super hard question…..and a good one! Any celeb no one would think twice about this…..but someone that is suppose to be a christian…well, media will do anything they can to destroy him.
But, media made him popular. the passion, made him “christian.” Problem with all of this, is that movie did not portray Jesus. It was media, and based on other things than biblical for the sake of media. Sooooo, in a sense, he is really not giving Christians a bad name…….”religious,” yes…..but I’m not concerned about ‘religion.’
Was his apology sincere? When you get caught, you are the most sincere
Does his apology really matter? I don’t think so…..he is just another actor, nothing special. It will only make him more popular………..that is what media does……point is, he doesn’t portray Christianity, only religion……and this will only hurt the understanding between the two 
Great post brother! ryc-I fear myself too, yet strangly enough I love being alone, but only for short times, because of myself, hehe…..ty for commenting 
I would say so.
I’m pretty sure he is going to hell forever.. jk no, actually I would say that if he said that much about it, and took beyond asking for forgiveness then he must be sincere. Being under the influence impares your judgment and its evident he didn’t know what he was saying.
As humans, we screw up every once and awhile. We make foolish decisions and eventually have to reap the consequences. And being in the public eye only intensifies the consequences and scrutiny.
Do I think he was sincere? I dunno. I can’t be the judge of that. I would hope so and as a previous poster had noted, that he would be able to back up his words with actions.
The only thing that worries me were the anti-semitic remarks made from Mel. When you are intoxicated you feel more at ease to speak your mind, which we all know he did and quite extensively. So after personally defending Mr. Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” against all the people who thought it was anti-Semitic…now I feel as if it’s a little more gray area, and I have to wonder whether he truly has intolerance against Jews and although he told Barbara Walters otherwise, I cannot be so sure he doesn’t resent them in some fashion.
Yeah, but it was a wake up call. HELLO! The guy downed a bottle of vodka and took a joy ride! He needs more than just a meeting with Jewish leaders, he needs a pastor (not someone who is going to just hear a confession) to pray with him, disciple him, be his brother. When you are that big of a star its hard to come by that kind of a friendship. I hope he reaches out to a leader (even a Catholic) in the same way that presidents do to leaders like Billy Grahm and Rick Warren… and if they aren’t available I’m sure my pastor from Florida would be glad to! lol
Um…thoughtful question!!hehe..: rolleyes : Have a wonderful Wednesday Pete…
Yes, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered writing such a statement – he’d just apologize through his reps and watch it blow over, like every other Hollywood star.
what I don’t understand is why this kind of intolerance is considered anti-semitic? You make fun of a fat person, you’re a jerk, you make fun of a slow person, you’re an ass, you make fun of a jew, you’re anti-semitic. Whenever someone makes fun of me, I’d like to publicly declare them un-kimitc. I will explain that their comments were anti-kimitc in every way and prove that they have a hatred towards Kim and should be chastised for it.
And of course it wasn’t sincere. He’s an actor. He would tell you he was black if he thought it would convince you.
i think he’s sincere. however, also it’s said that out of hte overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks
ryc: heh you don’t need a nice camera to take pictures like that. most cameras nowadays that’s over 3 MP and has manual settings can do pretty crazy things, if ppl konw how to use them
This situation is one of many that displays our “humanity”…Not in the negative sense but simply that we are humans. The planet we live in brings these sorts of happenings. I think he very well could be sincere. I think one of the greatest things that has come out of this situation is that Christians have a “popular” example of a person who is a professing Christian and doesn’t hate Jews and can actually have a conversation with them. To me, the value of that in itself is priceless.
hello~
it’s a cool blog~~
just wanna say hi to you^o^
nice to meet you: wink :
August 19th Dave and I are playing at The House Cafe @ 8pm with Venna (mark from felix culpa), and a band called Pompeii (eyeball records). It’d be great to see you there and play catch up. How are things with you?
hi
so like where do you live???
I guess we have no way of knowing if he is sincere or not but as with everything else it will be played and replayed and then played some more in the media, debated, opined and generally run in the ground until I will want to throw my tv outside. No one can know what is in his heart other than God and the man himself. I think people place too much importance on what celebrities do and say.
It’s just damage control. Gibson knows that Hollywood is run by Jews and he has to make nice with them if he intends to continue putting out his mediocre films. I just wonder what he’ll gargle with to get the taste of their asses out of his mouth.
i think it’s all a media thing. the media likes to create drama and we eat it up. if mr gibson weren’t a movie star, who would care?