Does Blame Have an Expiration Date?

Today the NY Daily News announced that the NY Giants and the NY Jets are considering selling naming-rights to their new stadium to Allianz—a German insurance company with ties to Nazi Germany. Jewish groups are outraged. (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/2008/09/10/2008-09-10_considering_firm_with_nazi_ties_for_nami.html)

Below are a few facts the Daily News printed about Allianz:
• It was the insurer of the Auschwitz death camp's facilities and personnel.
• Its chief executive, Kurt Schmitt, served as Hitler's economics minister.
• Like other insurers, it refused to pay back Jews' life insurance policies and sent the money to the Nazis instead.

• The company did pay restitution over the years.
The issue raises an important moral question: Are their certain crimes for which people will never be forgiven?
As Christians we are taught to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Regardless of the crime’s horror or the evil of the injustice committed, our Lord tells us we must forgive.

Yet, in the case of the Holocaust when should the Jewish people be expected to forgive? Is more than fifty years of seeking vengeance against all involved in this crime-against-humanity enough? Or is there no amount of reparation capable of mitigating the anger towards the guilty? Perhaps the crime committed was so evil that all involved should be forced to wear a metaphorical Scarlet Letter for as long as they exist?

Complicating matters regarding the naming rights for the new stadium is that NY Giants co-owner, the Tisch family, is Jewish. Has the Tisch family decided that Allianz has paid enough reparation over the years to warrant acceptance? Or is it simply a matter of economics and the Tisch family is willing to “sell out” for the right price? Considering the Tischs’ reputation as active supporters of Jewish philanthropy the sellout accusation seems highly unlikely.

So when is enough, enough?

I would be lying if I said I had the answer.

Donald Tremblay

Big Mac vs The Whopper

Over the past few weeks the American Family Association (AFA)-- http://www.afa.net/-- has been sending e-mail alerts exposing McDonald’s support of the homosexual agenda. The boycott attached to the e-mails specifies that AFA’s objection “is not about hiring homosexuals, or homosexuals eating at McDonald's, or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald's, as a corporation, choosing to put the full weight of their corporation behind promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.”

AFA reached out to McDonald’s and asked the corporation for the following:

Remove McDonald's name and logo from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) Web site listing McDonald's as a "Corporate Partner and Organization Ally" of NGLCC.

Remove the endorsement of NGLCC by Richard Ellis, Vice President of Communications for McDonald's USA, from the NGLCC Web site.

Not only did McDonald’s deny the request, but according to AFA the fast-food chain even “paid $20,000 to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and to have a seat on the board of directors.”

On August 13 AFA announced that McDonald’s had upped the ante in this cultural poker “game” by sponsoring a group called Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. According to AFA,
“Out & Equal™ Workplace Advocates is a national organization devoted to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the workplace.

One of its primary purposes is to train employees how to aggressively promote homosexuality within the company they work for, all the way to the corporate boardroom. Part of last year’s Out & Equal Summit in Washington, DC, (sponsored by McDonald’s) was an organized march into congressional offices demanding same-sex marriage laws be passed.”

So the next time you crave a hamburger, go with a Whopper.

Donald Tremblay