From The Washington Times
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — In the middle of Curtin Road, John Matko held one handwritten sign in his right hand and rested another against his jeans. Two inches of black tape obscured Penn State’s logo on the 34-year-old father’s hat, as he tried to ignore the jeers, slaps and beer hurled at him.
“Put abused kids first,” one of Matko’s signs read. “Don’t be fooled, they all knew. Tom Bradley, everyone must go.”
Penn State’s Beaver Stadium loomed 30 yards away, rumbling with the first roars of Saturday’s game with Nebraska. The sea of blue-clad supporters wearing gray fedoras and camouflage hunting jackets and “This is JoePa’s house” T-shirts parted around Matko.
“That is such bull–-!” one young woman screamed at him after glancing at the signs. “Who the f– do you think you are?”
Eyes hidden by blue aviator sunglasses, Matko didn’t respond.
A beer showered Matko. One man slapped his stomach. Another called him a “p–-.”
“I understand the culture,” said Matko, who graduated from Penn State in 2000 with a degree in nutrition. “I was part of it. It doesn’t surprise me what I’m getting from them.”
Matko drove three hours from his home in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning. He was tired of reading about what university officials didn’t do in the wake of Sandusky’s charges. The father of a 4-year-old boy, he couldn’t stop thinking about the 23 pages of horror in the grand jury’s indicA passer-by kicked it.
“You’re going to get your a— kicked, man,” a man bellowed.
“That’s bull–-, guy,” another said.
Abuse flew at Matko from young and old, students and alumni, men and women. No one intervened. No one spoke out against the abuse. Over the course of an hour, a lone man stopped, read the sign and said, “I agree.” Those two words were swallowed by the profanity and threats by dozens of others during the hour.
As I said, Ambrose Bierce had too optimistic a view of human nature.
Augustine and many of the fathers thought the majority of human beings freely reject God’s grace and love. I used to think they were too pessimistic, but as I age, I’m not so sure.
“This is the judgement, light has shone in the darkness, but human beings prefered darkness to light…”
The true is that a lot of people don’t care about sexual molestation as long it does not happen to them
This kind of behavior results when people define their fundamental identity by group membership, not by individual ideals and ethics (or, for Christians, by their status in Christ).
I’m glad the Washington Times published this. A lot of reports focused on the Penn State players walking out arm-in-arm and praying at midfield with Nebraska’s players before the game.
“Healing” is a much-overused word in our society. The contemporary translation is, “Don’t bother me with working through grief. Let’s ignore our pain and disabused illusions.” The victims don’t have that luxury.
Another thing to consider:
Familiarity breeds contempt…for the anonymous.