David Tyree Drops This One and The Good News

Here's my disclaimer. All comments are my opinions, and therefore subject to as much second-guessing and ridicule as the man I will focus on in today's blog post. If you want good news only, click here.

Let me get this straight. David Tyree, Super Bowl hero of the New York Giants two years ago who made the famous "Helmet Catch" that helped defeat the New England Patriots, said that he would trade his Super Bowl ring for one thing. That one thing was that the law in the New York legislature giving gay couples the right to marry would not pass.

Any time one minority goes after another minority, it makes me think of an abused child. Less than two generations ago, the same crowd protesting with Tyree against gay marriage would have been protesting against marriage between different races. Tyree believes that God decreed that marriage is between a man and a woman. Let's examine that religion, shall we? That's the same religion that gave the rubber stamp to slavery. Whose descendants were slaves? And guess which church they were allowed to attend as their one so-called freedom? Yep, it's the Christian church, the same church that's a backbone of African-American society.

Tyree called passing of gay marriage to be a "softening of the backbone of society". Marriage really strengthened the backbones of his former teammates Michael Strahan and Tiki Barber, didn't it? In case you didn't know, both Strahan and Barber got divorced after having relations with women outside of their marriage. Strahan came out in favor of the law giving gays equal marriage rights, by the way.

Any time you hear hate language, and that's what this is, go ahead and transfer that language to African-Americans, or Jews, or what the heck, Christians. If there were attempts to pass laws saying that these groups deserved the same rights as everyone else, and there were protests, that sounds pretty crazy, doesn't it?

Denying any group equal rights is wrong. Let's not be idiots and say that gay marriage is going to lead to people wanting to marry their pets or attempt to legalize sexual relations between adults and children. This is a relationship between two people in love, and it is a legal right to make medical decisions and take care of one's family. To be against that is to be against love and life.

It's pretty awesome that when I read an article on a site called Christianpost.com about the gay marriage bill, I saw an ad pop up featuring Neil Patrick Harris. Psst, you guys already lost. No, really, David Tyree getting 60,000 signatures against gay marriage is like me getting 60,000 signatures declaring that the Titans won Super Bowl 34.

The implication of the article is that since more people are protesting the law than supporting it, that it should not pass. A long time ago, a majority of Americans supported slavery. In the 60s, a majority of Americans were against the Civil Rights legislation. Our laws are not based on what the majority of people think or believe. Our laws are based, at least we hope they are, on what's right and just for all Americans.

An Atheist Goes to Church (the good news section)

In Bend, Oregon, two churches were recently vandalized by punk kids who "tagged" the churches with messages that included "Praise the FSM". No, this isn't the good news part. The FSM refers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. FSM was created, ironically enough, in response to a Kansas school board attempt to teach Intelligent Design in the classroom. Here's the letter that started the FSM phenomenon.

Let's get back to the main point of the story. In short, it's not cool to vandalize a church for any reason. Hemant Mehta, otherwise known as The Friendly Atheist, immediately went to work, getting the word out and raising more than $2,000 to help pay for the damages. The church turned down the money, saying that they had everything they needed, but the point had been made. The money went to Foundation Beyond Belief, a nondenominational charitable organization that's based out of Atlanta. A man representing a belief in no God had attempted to help a house of God.