August 3, 2006
Call me old fashioned, but leaving aside Mel Gibson’s outrageous remarks about Jews following his arrest in Malibu by a sheriff who happened to be Jewish, I have a question no one else seems to be asking.
What was a married man with seven children and a supposedly rigid Catholic belief system doing in a bar at 2 a.m., drunk, and with young women hanging all over him?
Of course our morally lax culture doesn’t mid such things. It’s only the anti-Semitism that bothers people. But this sort of behavior should bother married people. It should bother men because it is a poor example. And it should bother women because toleration of this sort of behavior is a direct attack on family stability and family life.
What does Mel Gibson lack that he needs to get drunk and surround himself with young women? It isn’t money. He says he loves his wife. Yes, we are all sinners, but that is an explanation, not an excuse for more sinning.
Gibson needs more than extended sessions with Jewish leaders; he needs transformation.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
