Voices: ESPN's new sport: Christian bashingJAN 31
Over the last few weeks a struggle has played itself out between religious conservatives and the corporate leadership of ABC-owned ESPN.
Dana Jacobson, anchor of ESPN’s “First Take,” let go a drunken blue streak at a bawdy roast for Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic of ESPN’s popular “Mike & Mike in the Morning” radio show. For people of the Christian faith, it would be hard to imagine anything worse than what Jacobson reportedly said: “f-ck Notre Dame,” “f-ck Touchdown Jesus” (referring to a mural at Notre Dame) and, finally, “f-ck Jesus.” ESPN suspended Jacobson for one week without pay. After a hollow apology, she is back on the air. When confronted with the fact that other celebrities, such as Don Imus, have been taken off the air for months for similar offenses, ESPN is recalcitrant. They will not discuss punishing Jacobson further.
The lesson learned from this episode is one conservative Christians have come to expect — there is one standard for offending Christians and another for all other groups. ESPN disputes Jacobson’s exact words, but will not deny she said them or something similar. ESPN argues Jacobson’s comments were directed against Notre Dame’s football program. So if Jacobson had attacked the football program at Grambling State University, a black college, by cursing Martin Luther King Jr., would she still have her job?
For Christians of all races this is the most egregious kind of offense because Jesus Christ is the object of their devotion as their Divine Savior. ESPN just does not understand that religious convictions are as profound as racial identity, or more so. Her intoxication is supposed to mitigate her words, but this did not help Mel Gibson’s plight when he made his anti-Semitic comments to police. But it was a roast, one might say, and everyone knows that a roast can get raunchy. Why did ESPN allow itself to be associated with such suspect activities? And when did the shocking, the obscene and the vulgar replace wit, subtlety and class? Apparently, no one told Jacobson that the person getting roasted was not Jesus. What’s the lesson here? Perhaps we need return to a culture of respect for all employees, not just the cool, naughty ones. Here are some simple tests for moral clarity: Would your mother, wife or daughter slap you for having brought her to such an event? Would you as a child have gotten your mouth washed out with soap for such language? In the future, let “Mike & Mike” be roasted by their friends in an appropriate venue, like a middle-school playground or a seedy bar, but let the corporate-sponsored Christian-bashing end.
