Thoughts on the Penn State and Chick-Fil-A issues in the news recently:

First up: Penn State and the actions of the NCAA. 

I won’t get into the specifics of the Sandusky case here. Needless to say that saga is as disgusting as one will ever see, and I expect he will find his remaining days very confining and uncomfortable. What I want to address is the overwhelming case of instant justice and out-of-proportion indignation that results from these situations nowadays. While I understand the Freeh report was drafted by Louis Freeh, former FBI director, and was very comprehensive, the idea that Freeh’s report should be the final, definitive word on the scandal is, quite frankly, absurd. Freeh had the full cooperation of Penn State the institution, but he lacked the power of subpoena and the power to compel testimony from key actors in the case. Certainly Curlee and Spanier refrained from providing testimony to Freeh to protect themselves in upcoming criminal trials, and Paterno was dead! I find it difficult to believe that the Freeh report, as a stand-alone work designed to prove or attempt to prove a case against the institution and the men involved, can be fully accepted at face value without taking the ancillary factors into account.

Yet that is exactly what NCAA president Mark Emmert did when deciding, unilaterally and with full endorsement of the NCAA management council, to crush the Penn State football program with some of the harshest sanctions ever levied. This was done despite the fact the NCAA commissioned no investigation of its own, nor did they so much as attempt a fact-finding of any sort. They simply took the Freeh report, said “Yep, looks good,” and accepted it as full gospel truth. Even the by-laws of the NCAA provide for due process in any investigation, and here they blatantly disregarded their own charter for the sake of an expedient media splash designed to make the NCAA look good. There is simply no other reason for such a quick reaction to the Free report itself. Remember this: It took years before the NCAA finally sanctioned USC for the Reggie Bush benefit scandal. It took months before the NCAA declared Cam Newton eligible to play in 2010, and even then they were criticized for not being thorough enough. Yet by and large everyone is okay with the sanctions given to Penn State with no due process whatsoever!

I agree with the $60 million fine; in fact I applaud it. Sending that money to help victims of sexual abuse and for prevention programs is exactly the right move. Spreading it out over a five-year period to avoid a huge financial impact on the university is also a smart idea. The football money does not apply to just the football program; it supports many other sports in the athletic department. Spreading out the fine helps mitigate the impact on other sports programs. Now here’s where the NCAA goes wrong: First, reducing scholarships for the next four years by twenty is brutally harsh for a football program. So too is the four-year postseason ban. Now you may be wondering why I think this is where the NCAA got it wrong, so I’ll explain. The scholarship reduction and bowl ban serves to punish one group only, the players. They’re not punishing the university president, he’s out. So is the athletic director. They are both facing jail time for being idiots. Sandusky is already figuring out how to become someone’s sweetheart in prison. Joe Pa is dead and can no longer answer the charges. Who does that leave? The young men on the team who weren’t even there when most of this took place! The coaching staff, most of whom were coaching in the NFL last year! None of the actors who were involved in the scandal to begin with are currently associated with Penn State, yet the NCAA and Emmert felt it necessary to make sure the football culture did not override common sense. Oh yes, and one more thing: any player who wants to transfer may do so without penalty. I can say I am proud of the guys who stayed, and I also do not blame the ones who left one bit. I blame the NCAA for once again failing to punish the people who made the mess; instead only managing to punish those left behind to clean it up.

 Now, as for the Chick-Fil-A controversy; I am not going to be friendly with this one. The idea that the owner of a private corporation can voice his feelings on a religious issue and have it so blatantly and completely misconstrued is unconscionable. Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy’s stance is this:

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. 
"We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized. 
"We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles." 

Now what I would like is for someone to explain how we went from support of “the biblical definition of the family unit” to staunchly anti-gay and anti-gay-rights. Does the company have a policy against hiring gay men and women? No, they do not. Do they actively and forcefully advocate for laws defining marriage as between man and woman? No, they don’t do that either. What Dan Cathy did was voice his belief, and as President and CEO of the company he can speak for himself AND for his stores. Yet somehow his belief that his company operates on biblical principles (for pete’s sake, they’re even closed on Sunday, which some analysts say costs the company revenues in excess of $1 million each week) has made him and, by extension, his company exclusory, elitist and discriminatory. No, no and oh for heaven’s sake, NO. He was speaking of his Christian, biblically-based beliefs, not the civil belief!

Let me put it another way: I can adhere to whatever religious beliefs I wish, and that’s that. At the same time, I would not use those religious beliefs to suppress the civil rights of ANY GROUP. If a church wants to say “No, we are not going to marry a gay couple in our building,” it is well within their purview as a church to do so. But if an atheist heterosexual couple can walk into a justice-of-the-peace, get a marriage license and be LEGALLY BONDED, why can a homosexual couple NOT do the same?  And where in that interview did anyone get the idea that Mr. Cathy openly and fully supported laws that prohibit gay marriage?  Dan Cathy did not, at ANY time, say gay couples should not be given civil consideration. He said his company supports the biblical definition of family. That’s all. And hey, all of you who spent days crying into your cereal over this, outraged and indignant, threatening to boycott the chain? When are you going to realize the free exchange of ideas is what makes this country great? I mean, you wouldn’t want to oh, discriminate against anyone because they have a differing opinion would you? No? See, I didn’t think so.