Cult News

“I don’t want to lynch any Jews¦I love them. I pray for them,” Mel Gibson once said somewhat cryptically while doing the rounds to promote his film “Passion of the Christ.”

Critics said that Gibson’s “artistic” choices for that film often appeared “anti-Semitic” and at times could not be supported either historically and/or biblically. Nevertheless this blockbuster may have generated more wealth for Mel Gibson than his long film career as an actor, which now seems to be winding down. 

During one screening the director who won an Oscar for “Braveheart” was reportedly overheard describing those Jews who rejected Jesus as “either Satanic or the dupes of Satan.”

Mel Gibson has claimed repeatedly that he is not “anti-Semitic.”

Of course few bigots readily admit to their prejudice, at least not openly.

In his public apology Gibson says, “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.” 

However, during his drunken rage the director’s raw uncut persona may have come through as he ranted passionately about how “f—ing Jews” were responsible for everything from wars to his arrest in Malibu.

The California police officer that bore the brunt of Gibson’s insults was in fact Jewish. At least this time the once popular Hollywood star got something right, a Jew was taking him in.

Now comes the spin.

First a “mea culpa” rendered through a carefully scripted public apology.

“I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display,” the actor told the press and quickly entered rehab.

But will Gibson get off the hook by blaming booze for his bigotry?

It’s common knowledge a few drinks can cause people to let their real feelings slip out, lubricated loose with a little liquor. And for anyone that has studied the Gibson family history it’s not difficult to understand where “those vicious words came from.”

The former “Mad Max” seems to be a “chip off the old block.”

Hutton Gibson, the 87-year-old father of the famous actor/director, raised his family as so-called “traditional Catholics,” which is something of an oxymoron, given that the Gibsons don’t belong to the traditional Roman Catholic Church.

Instead, Mel built his own chapel in Malibu and bought another one for his dad in West Virginia.

Mel Gibson was raised by an anti-Semitic father that fed his son on a steady diet of conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial and ethnocentric dogma, which not only consigned the Jews to hell, but also the many Protestants that bought tickets to see his film “Passion.”

In an interview with the Herald Sun in Australia when asked specifically if Protestants are denied eternal salvation the star said, “There is no salvation for those outside the Church” (meaning his own version of Catholicism).

Gibson also apparently believes his spouse is damned.

“My wife is a¦Episcopalian¦She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff¦she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair” reported MSNBC. 

So much for anyone that thought a belief in Jesus and “that stuff” along with a ticket to “Passion” might purchase redemption.

Meanwhile Gibson has garnered some interesting Hollywood apologists rallying to his support.

“Sometimes when you have a couple too many you’re stupid,” says Patrick Swayze. And the “Dirty Dancing” star should know given his reported battle with the bottle.

Two-time Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, who starred with Mel in “Maverick” during 1994 posed the question, “Is he an anti-Semite?” And then answered quickly, “Absolutely not.”

Ironically, though Gibson may have played a gambler, but he probably wouldn’t bet on his co-star’s likelihood of entering heaven. After all, Foster has repeatedly been rumored to be a lesbian, which would easily put her on Mel’s hot for hell list.

Doe that sound a bit hateful?

What would Mel’s diehard “Passion” fans say if their hero ran his mouth publicly about “f—ing” Protestants?

Perhaps they wouldn’t be willing to hear any excuses.

Not all Christian fundamentalists apparently want to forgive the director, despite his recent religious movie.

“Gibson’s latest rant was not an aberration influenced by booze. Other statements he’s made about other groups and individuals, while presumably sober, indicate a pattern,” says columnist Cal Thomas, once Rev. Jerry Falwell’s right hand man.

Amen?

Thomas stopped short of placing the director’s anti-Semitic slant in “Passion” as part of that perceived “pattern.” 

And isn’t it the height of irony that Jesus the star of Gibson’s film had a Jewish mother?

Wait a minute, wouldn’t that make Mary and her son “f—ing Jews”?

Jesus warned that many would come in his name, but they wouldn’t always be nice.

Might that include Mel Gibson?

Has the Oscar-winning director deceived the faithful while making millions cynically marketing and merchandising Jesus?

It seems that Gibson was often good at keeping up appearances, but failed when it came to performing the precepts of tolerance and kindness he supposedly believed in.