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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
Today, news has come down from New York that during an anti-marriage equality news conference, Superbowl hero and new NOM spokesman David Tyree said the following:
Asked if he’d give up the Super Bowl to stop gay marriage, Tyree said: “Honestly, I probably would.”
“Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored,” he said. “Being the fact that I firmly believe that God created and ordained marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that that’s something that should be fought for at all costs.”
“So I’ll lay down everything I am to preserve the honor and integrity of the God that I serve.”
That's all well and good except for one fact.
David Tyree did not singlehandedly win the Superbowl for the New York Giants that year. Granted, he caught a pass brilliantly, but remember that the thrower of that pass, Eli Manning, did receive the Superbowl MVP award for that game.
And let's not forget Tyree's other teammates who also played just as hard as he to not only get to the Superbowl, but also win it.
But one must not hold it against Tyree. When you get caught up in a situation where your ego gets puffed up, it's difficult to remember the folks who got you there.
But still, Tyree has no business saying that he would give up the Superbowl win because it doesn't belong to him solely. It's something he has to share.
In that same respect, the definition of marriage is not something that folks like Tyree have a right to dictate. They aren't the only tax-paying citizens in New York, therefore they should not have final say over the matter, regardless of their religious beliefs or otherwise.
What Tyree's statement perfectly captures is the self-righteous audacity of those who would deny lgbtqs the right to marriage equality. They seem to think that they have a divine right to it, even though their arguments as to the reasons why are either outright lies (marriage equality will force kindergartners to learn about gay intimacy) or just downright stupid (marriage equality will lead to anarchy).
It's a sad commentary about a selfish mindset. Tyree, NOM and others like them think that they are the only important components in this argument of marriage equality. They seem to think that their opinions are the only ones which matter. What about the same-sex couple together for a number of years with no legal protection (and no money to afford to jump through the financial hoops to gain that legal protection) should something tragic happen to one of them?
Or what about the thousands upon thousand of same-sex households with children? Why should they be considered as anonymous bothers? Why should children in these households feel that there is something wrong with their families?
No matter how closely Tyree clings to the cross, no matter how tightly he grips his Bible, these families aren't going away. And their needs should be addressed.
Just like Tyree has absolutely no right to give up his Superbowl victory because it's not something he earned on his own, he and others who are against marriage equality have no right to decide whether or not lgbtqs should be legally married.
Because the definition of marriage does not belong solely to them
35 Comments
I was married; it was recognised in New YorkSo…..F*ck you, Mr. Tyree.
Who made a multimillionaire sports figure an expert on human love, the human condition, sexual orientation or anything else, for that matter? Are you an expert on sociology, anthropology or human sexuality?
No
Don’t embarrass yourself by parroting your bigoted ignorance in public, where it can be recorded for your children and your grandchildren to wince at every time a documentary on human rights is on the telly over the next several decades.
He Probably Can’t Help What He SaysI don’t follow American football, so I don’t have the foggiest idea about whatever great play he’s said to have made. And I don’t care. And I don’t see why that possibly makes him an expert about marriage equality.
What I do know, though, is that he seems not very bright. He seems the sort whose head could have been filled with all sorts of hateful, religious nonsense from an early age. He also seems the sort who could be suckered into fronting for those cynical bigots at NOM who believe lots of New Yorkers will hang on every word out of the mouth of am A-A jock.
In other words: If what he was saying wasn’t quite so vile, I’d almost feel sorry for the sucker: Lord knows, he knows not what he thinks he knows.
Sounds like you’re letting him off the hook.Is that what you intended, or am I not reading your comment as you intended?
Davis, I would give up everything except my childrenfor just one more day with my wife, or even a little longer on the phone when she called me before she boarded the plane that never arrived.
My wife, David.
The woman that I still love, whose voice I still hear in soft sounds and who I dream of and awaken in tears.
So my love for her is unworthy to have been a marriage?
Then I pity your wife, if you have one.
By the way, your god ordanined bloody NOTHING!
NOTHING!
Marriage existed long before 600 something BCE, when a minor tribe from the Middle East got around to writing down their mythology.
The Romans had civil marriage
You Abrahamics has polygamous marriage and concubines til the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans enforced their norms upon your uncivlised Bronze Age remnant spiritual ancestors.
“Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored”Isn’t this exactly what the 9/11 terrorists believed?
Agree ….except…Although not all humans do reach the actual psychological stage of ADULTHOOD.. most who can read do. Therefore, you don't get off the hook for just blithely following along with what your elders say.Being an adult means thinking through all of your own life features, goals, judgements beliefs…not following others. That is definition of immaturity. This includes religious beliefs!
It is, and in the same fashionHis god must be honoured, and only in a fashion that Mr Tyree approves of.
Not only is Christianity the only path to them, theirs is th only valid Christianity.
A decade ago, a German Philosopher and Theologian named Joseph Ratzinger described thinking like that as “intellectual suicide”
NoI don’t doubt his hatred. But I question whether he had the smarts as a kid to question all the crap being shoved into his head in church. I also think the dope is NOM’s dupe.
Maggie and Brian are evil people. What Tyree says is evil. But I think in large part they’re his puppetmasters and ventriloquists. Judging from what I saw of him on CNN the other day, he can’t speak a coherent declarative sentence and I don’t think he possesses any logical, reasoning faculties.
Now, he’s not entirely innocent. It looks like he grasped at a chance to get in front of a camera and get a little adulation from adoring fans. But, again, if you saw him on CNN it’s pretty clear he doesn’t fully realize what he’s saying.
So, no, I’m not letting him off the hook. But I do think he’s a bit too simple to be fully culpable.
YepReligious frenzy and clever preachers can turn all sorts of ignorant dupes into fanatical evildoers. All religions are the same in this, whether we’re talking about whoever warped Tyree’s mind, or who trained AQ terrorists for 9/11 and other missions around the world, or the adults in the Phelps clan.
The only difference is that Tyree has no flock of virgins to look forward to. Otherwise, religious fanaticism is the smae the world over.
to borrow a phrase from “A Man For All Seasons”… if a man gives up his soul for the world, he has gained nothing.
But for the Super Bowl?
Tyree as Sir Richard Rich?It works…
This “not very bright” Bible Bigot went to Syracuse!Why did Syracuse allow a “not very bright” person to stay in school…Oh Yeah. I forgot. He was a football star. Nevermind.
Ever notice…How the people who have had a lot of trouble in their lives, such as with drugs or suicidal feelings, tend to be the most holier-than-thou devout because they feel like they have been “saved” by a being who is much bigger and powerful than they are? In cases like his it almost seems like they are trading one addiction for another and are being just as destructive to society with their behavior.
Big talk. Big dealAs if someone is really going to ask him to give up anything like that nonsense with the Superbowl.
I’ve worked with plenty big talking “chirstians” that claim they would give up everything (leave their family/quit their job/give up their lives) if only God told them to.
They know that would never happen so they can make big promises.
Well, he did single-handedly win the gameAfter he hiked the ball to himself, he ran back a few yards, ducking the rishers and then went for a long bomb….he rad down the field and covered himself, taking out two opposing players as he maneuvered into position to receive the pass.
Another player bore down on him, but he got in the wway of himself to make sure that he would be clear to catch the pass ….
Isn’t David Tyree the man who won the Super Bowl alone?
No it isn’tThe reality, that many do not want to acknoledge, including many on the left, many liberals, especially athesists types, is tht the 9/11 terrorists were motivated by politics, NOT religion: US foreign policy.
Exceptthat if you actually bother to look at what the terrorists say, their actions, according to them, are not motivated so much by religion, but by politics.
Atheists really need to get their chips about religion off their shoulders (and I say this as an atheist)
Which is whyTerrorists recruit in mosques and madrassas, why terrorist organizations such as the Taliban, al-Qaida, the Mujahidin and Wahhabism all have solid foundations in fundamentalist Islamic theology, why so many terrorist organizations refer to themselves as Islamic or Muslim, why Wahhabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia, is the chief financial backer of many terrorist organizations and sponsors of mosques known for extremism and Islamic fundamentalism, and why documents left behind by the 9/11 attackers indicated a strong belief that, by by dying the attacks, they would be martyrs to their faith and thus earn eternal glory in Paradise for killing unbelievers.
Yup, no religious overtones there.
While politics may be motivating the top leaders of these terrorist groups, the clear fact is that religion is the tool being used by these leaders to encourage terrorist attacks, and that the people actually carrying out the attacks are doing so out of a profoundly religious motive.
Ah, so Paradise is a political expression?The phrase Allahu akbar (“God is great”), uttered so often by Islamic terrorists and commonly found in terrorist recruiting material and propaganda, is just a form of ceremonial deism?
Religionists really need to get their blinders about religion off their heads, especially if they are going to call themselves atheists.
There’s no distinction to them.They have no seperation of church and state, so to them, political and religious differences are the same thing.
It’s more of an excuse for bad behavior.Yes, they do have some political reasons but if those are wrapped up in religious fervor people become more rabid about doing something stupid, like blowing themselves up, because they are “chosen” to do so.
Are there religious UNDERTONES?Yes.
Are you denying that the terrorists themselves have stated that their reasons for bombing things, is not in fact, religion, it isn’t because American women or American LGBTs or whatever, it is because of US foreign policy?
” why Wahhabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia, is the chief financial backer of many terrorist organizations and sponsors of mosques known for extremism and Islamic fundamentalism, and why documents left behind by the 9/11 attackers indicated a strong belief that, by by dying the attacks, they would be martyrs to their faith and thus earn eternal glory in Paradise for killing unbelievers. ”
And Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of which country? Buys a lot of weapons from which country? Sells a lot of oil to which country? Which country has military bases in Saudi Arabia?
“While politics may be motivating the top leaders of these terrorist groups, the clear fact is that religion is the tool being used by these leaders to encourage terrorist attacks, and that the people actually carrying out the attacks are doing so out of a profoundly religious motive.
”
No, the fact is HARDLY clear. All these terrorists, whether those who succeeeded, or those who fail, have stated that their reasons were movtivated by American foreign policy in the MidEast. Not because they “hate our freedoms”, or because give a rat’s flying ass about what American women or LGBTs do.
So why target America?What makes America so special, formthe standpoint of religious fervour, that it should be a target?
Yes there is.If you terrorist targets a country because of foreign policy, it is politics, not religion.
The IRA did not target the UK simply because the majority of people in the UK are (nominally) protestant.
If the terrorisists don’t draw a distinction between politics and religionthen an attack can’t be blamed on one or the other.
We’re powerful infidels.
Except they make it pretty damn clear that the issue is the power, or more specifically, how that power is used, not the “infidelity”. They don’t give a rat’s flying ass about “our freedoms”.
Yes it canIf the IRA says it was bombing because of British occupation, that is politics. If it says that it was bombing because Brits are protestant, and would continue bomobing even if Brits left N Ireland, that is religion.
Furthermore, if it is religion, once again why target the US? There are other countries that are (ostensibly) Chrisitian.
You’re comparing apples to oranges.
The two go hand in hand.We’re infidels with more power than they have. They’ve also made it pretty damn clear that they thought their actions were God’s bidding.
NopeThey made it pretty damn clear that it was about HOW the power was used. They made it pretty damn clear that it wasn’t about “hating our freedoms”, or hating how American women are dressed, or any of that (neo)liberal idiocy
Actually, I’m notTerrorist acts / uprisings etc, are almost never about religion (despite what some hardcore religious believers, and some hardcore atheists want to believe.)
So when someone flies a plane into a building thinking it will earn him his place in heaven, there’s nothing religious about that.
Nope.Their constant invocations of their religion makes it pretty damn clear that political and religious motivations are the same thing to them.
Convenience.If they were to target Lichtenstein they probably wouldn’t get many followers since not too many people know what that culture is all about or even where it is on a map. American culture is ubiquitous and often comes across as very arrogant, which it actually is in many respects. As for the religious fervor, that is used a tactic to get people to do these dumb things. Not everything is about religion but it does give stupid or crazy people an excuse to be mean to others (like Peter Labarbera) and to be destructive of other people’s property or lives.