Story here. h/t: NealeNews.com
Following is Mel Gibson's statement:
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.
I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.
This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. Its about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.
-Mel Gibson
I don't know about others, but that sounds like a very remorseful man who wants to do whatever it takes to pay for his great wrong.
I don't see very many folks who utter reprehensible slurs going to such lengths to strongly disavow their utterances as "insanity" and sincerely asking the very folks they offensively slurred if they will help him to repent and heal.
Mel recognizes that there's something wrong with him and says he wants to become well again. Obviously he does have some serious problems and might well have been insane at the time he made those reprehensible slurs. And if so, it can't be ruled out that he might still be... and therefore need help.
I believe that he does indeed have some mental problems, exacerbated by his problem with alcohol and whatnot.
Know what? I now believe that hatred is a mental disease... a potentially curable one, for the human brain is programmable, as we well know. And the human brain can be reprogrammed, no doubt.
He continues to vehemently declare that he is not an anti-Semite and that there can be "no tolerance" for anti-Semitism. To me, that is a start.
Know what? I have seen that it is indeed possible to go from harboring bigoted views to exorcising that demon. I cannot recall any examples off the top of my head, but I do indeed know that humans possess the capability of changing for the better and shaking off the darkness that might afflict them.
Of course, it's up to the individual to want to get better and to do whatever it takes to do so.
I say let Mel heal. Let him make contrition. Let him become well again.
If we don't give him the chance to turn himself around, then we can't give anyone else the chance, either, and that'd be a bad thing for our society and for humanity as a whole. People must be allowed to go from badness to goodness... after all, isn't that the Christian, the humane, the good, the right, thing to do?
Well, that's my perspective at this time. I wish Mel well with his rehabilitation and hope he sticks to the work he needs to do to make himself a good person.
He needs the chance. I don't think it would be very humane of us to deem that he cannot be a good person, ever.
Let the man pay. Let him heal. For the better. Then hopefully many, many more will follow in his footsteps and go from bad to good. For the sake of humanity.
On a related note, I would also allow the same opportunity for sincere repentance and healing for Muslims and others like them who are full of hatred for whatever reason. For we know that millions of Muslims are victims of heinous abuse in which they are indoctrinated in little or nothing but sheer, evil hatred of nonMuslims, particularly Jews, and acutally want to commit murder of them.
They, too, can repent and change from evil to good. In fact, here's a case in point: former "Palestinian" jihadist Walid Shoebat. This guy went from jihadist to a staunch, unyielding enemy of the jihadists. He's no longer anti-Semite, nor anti-Israel, for he has seen the light and has changed... and he's on our side in the war against jihad. I would certainly hope so!
You know, I think this recent happenstance with Mr. Gibson might he a sign. A sign to us that we must remember that, yes, there are many people in the world possessed of the mental disorder, the insanity of hatred. And that it is possible for them to be cured of this disease.
Yes, hatred is a mental disease which can be cured. Does anyone really believe that it cannot? Would anger and contempt... or perhaps even hatred itself... be preventing us from believing that people with this mental illness cannot ever be cured, at least in the sense of "recovering alcoholics"?
So...
For the future of humanity, we must leave the door open to the possibility of curing people of the mental disease of hatred.
Is this not a worthwhile endeavor?
