Walk a mile in Michael’s moccasins before casting your stones at him

Associated Press photo

Michael Jackson, who died unexpectedly last month at the age of 50, is memorialized today in Los Angeles. First, millions of people lived through him as though they had his talent, too,  and then millions felt better about their own sins by castigating him for the sins he was accused of, but now, hopefully, he is at peace. 

OK, so I will admit, it has been hard for me not to view Michael Jackson as having been pretty creepy. He apparently had enough money to create and to live in his own little alternate universe — and he did so.

Unfortunately, I probably will remember Michael Jackson more for his unfortunate morphing of his appearance over the years (from a young black man to a white woman, apparently) than for anything else.

But I’m not on board with calling him a “child molester” or a “pervert” or the like.

Fact is, I never saw Michael Jackson molest anyone of any age, and you didn’t, either.

Fact is, he never was found by a court of law as being guilty of having committed a sexual crime, and in this nation you are supposed to be presumed innocent until deemed otherwise by a court of law.

Even if Jackson had been found guilty by a court of law, this is supposed to be a “Christian” nation, and Jesus Christ said interesting things like “The one among you who has never sinned may cast the first stone [at the accused sinner].”

So when the likes of Repugnican Rep. Peter King of New York calls Jackson things like a “low-life,” a “child molester,” a “pedophile” and a “pervert,” and adds, “and to be giving this much attention to him … what does this say about our country?” — and when even leftist columnist and editorial cartoonist Ted Rall jumps on the dog pile on Jackson with this rather vile cartoon*:

— it makes me ponder:

Indeed, what does it say about our country that an individual who never was found guilty by a court of law nonetheless is deemed guilty by so many (most of whom have tiny lives and can only feel better about themselves by beating up on others)? What does it say that in a “Christian” nation Michael Jackson is judged so harshly? What would Jesus say about Michael Jackson?

I never walked a mile in Michael Jackson’s moccasins. I wasn’t raised by his reportedly abusive, apparently egocentric father who apparently used his own children for his own selfish gain. I don’t know exactly what Michael Jackson went through, although I have read hints, such as how when he was an awkward, painfully self-conscious teenager, people told him that they missed the cute, little Michael Jackson.

I don’t know exactly how lonely Michael Jackson apparently was, even when he was on top of the world, before he was called such things as a “pedophile” and a “pervert.”

Speaking of which, I don’t know what did and what did not happen in the privacy of Jackson’s Neverland ranch.

Because there is so much that I don’t know, I’m not ready to condemn Michael Jackson, and I hope that he rests in peace, that in death he finds the peace that he apparently never found in life.

P.S. To those I’ve heard questioning the cost of Michael Jackson’s memorial service to the taxpayers, I have to ask you: how much money in sales taxes and income taxes did he contribute to the local and federal governments over the many years? More than his memorial service is costing, I’m pretty sure. (And indeed, his memorial service is good business for Los Angeles, is it not?)

And why do people worry themselves over the cost of Michael Jackson’s memorial service but just allow their government to spend billions and billions and billions of their tax dollars on bogus wars? Um, yeah.

They strain out gnats but swallow camels, to quote Jesus once again. (Funny how “Christians” not only don’t follow Jesus’ teachings, but they don’t even know them.)

*Ted mostly redeems himself with this one: