Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Penn State Students Act "Cross"

My first thought when I read this was one of resignation--there are people who will complain about anything:

A blue, cross-like design emblazoned on T-shirts at Penn State University has some critics seeing red.

The shirts — intended to foster school spirit — sport a vertical blue line down the center with the words "Penn State White Out" emblazoned across the chest, forming a design that some say resembles a cross. The back of the shirt depicts the same blue line obscured by the words, "Don't be intimated … It's just me and 110,000 of my friends." Roughly 30,000 of the shirts have been sold.

Penn State says it has received six complaints about the shirt, including one from the Anti-Defamation League's Philadelphia branch, from people who say it connotes a Christian cross...

The shirts are typically worn at Penn State's annual "White Out" game, at which a crowd of 100,000 screaming Nittany Lions fans creates a virtual sea of white at Beaver Stadium.

OK, I looked at the picture of the shirt at the linked story, and it does resemble a cross. But read the article and you get this:

While Berns acknowledged the shirt's single blue stripe resembles the stripe on the team's football helmet....

So the design is supposed to mimic the football team's helmet and just resembles a Christian cross. The complainers are acting like ninnies (as opposed to Nittany Lions).

But then I thought, how would I like it if some design for my school inadvertently looked like a hammer and sickle, or like the President's "O" logo, or like a crescent? I'd be displeased. But why? Because I don't like what those symbols represent.

So now I understand what the students are complaining about. They don't like Christianity--not just the organized Christian religions and their earthly foibles, but Christianity itself. Love they neighbor, do unto others, turn the other cheek Christianity.

I get it now.

Here's my advice to those 6 complainers: if you don't like the shirt, don't buy one.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. Talk about a Leap of Faith!

"They don't like Christianity--not just the organized Christian religions and their earthly foibles, but Christianity itself. Love they neighbor, do unto others, turn the other cheek Christianity."

Your self-proclaimed omniscience must be a heavy burden. And you never set it down. What strength you must have!

Let me give you a clue, free of charge: To many, the cross is a symbol of Christians and the atrocities they have visited on humanity throughout the ages.

Darren said...

Of course it is, and you have made my point for me. I'm sure you'd be much happier with the hammer and sickle, or with a red crescent.

Anonymous said...

You cannot restrain your presumptuousness, can you? Shockers 2 and 3: I would not approve of hammers and sickles or red crescents.

If the Nittany Lion fans wanted a more effective "white out" shirt, they might have left the front clean with only the blue stripe. The high, perpendicular placement of the text is what diminished the design and raised the ire.

Anyway, it's you who regularly gets the vapors when you see Obama's campaign logo used this way or that. Some people just offend too easily.

The fans can run whatever shirt design they like. And other groups are free to raise whatever objections they find.

Welcome to America.

Darren said...

I get "the vapors"? No, I just don't like it. Now it's *you* who are being presumptuous. Guess it's easy to do.

"The fans" seems to be buying the shirts. The 6 complainers aren't. THAT is America.