You decide

Who's got the better handle on the Mel Gibson situation, Andrew Sullivan:

It is also a defining moment for American Christianism. Christianists protected, promoted, lionized and harbored this Jew-hater. And they need to be held account for it in a terribly dangerous time.

...or Michael Medved:

Rather than driving this tormented, self-destructive, deeply disturbed but vastly talented artist into the arms of active Jew-haters (like his father), wouldn't it make more sense to try to reach out to him at a moment of vulnerability and disgrace? The Jewish community need not approach the tarnished star with a message of "poor baby, all is forgiven" but it makes sense to offer at least some ladder to help him crawl out of the dank pit he has dug for himself.

In fact, Medved makes many good points in his essay, including slamming Hollywood's hypocrisy:

At a time of surging Jew-hatred around the world, Gibson's drunken, after-midnight remarks to arresting officers on a lonely stretch of Malibu highway represent a less serious threat to the Jewish people than the very public anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments by numerous celebrities, academics, UN officials and politicians. In April of 1996, for instance, the Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando declared on Larry King Live: "Hollywood is run by Jews, owned by Jews, and they should have greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering. Because they have exploited....We've seen everything but we never saw the Kike." The Anti-Defamation League criticized Brando, of course, but never suggested that he should be ostracized and boycotted, as they recently demanded in Gibson's case. Meanwhile, Gibson had already attempted a public apology for his loathesome private remarks, declaring that "I acted like a person who was completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable.I am deeply ashamed of everything I said." Compare this contrition to the unapologetic, and ceaselessly repeated attacks on Israel by another controversial Hollywood director, Michael Moore, who declared in Liverpool (quoted in the New York Times, June 26, 2004) that the embattled Jewish state represented one of the modern world's centers of evil: "It's all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton." Ironically, Michael Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel (brother of a Democratic Congressman from Illinois), is one of the entertainment industry figures leading the charge to demand that the show biz establishment blacklist Gibson.

It's histrionic and silly for Andrew Sullivan to claim that any Christian who supported the filmmaker Gibson and his "The Passion of the Christ" now has to answer for Gibson's behavior. Does the fact that the world now knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gibson struggles with anti-Semitism somehow make the admirers of his work complicit in his anti-Semitism? The idea is preposterous. Do fans of Brando have to justify their appreciation of his acting in light of his anti-Semitic remarks? Do fans of Woody Allen have to explain themselves in light of the Woodman's running off with his virtual stepdaughter? Does Jane Fonda's repulsive pro-communist activism during the Vietnam War mean that her fans have to be held accountable for her immoral politics? Is it impermissible to admire Ezra Pound's poetry until and unless you can explain his fascism? And so forth. I mean, look, if the Pet Shop Boys endorsed Hezbollah, no one will expect that Andrew Sullivan, who praises them constantly, to have to explain himself.

Besides, the Christians who were the most fervent backers of "The Passion of the Christ" are also among those who are the most fervent backers of the State of Israel -- a fact that the anti-"Christianist" blowhards prefer not to notice, but which cannot be ignored. There are countless Christians -- I among them -- who loved "The Passion of the Christ," and who love and support Israel, and who were angered and deeply disappointed by what Mel Gibson did. His drunken remarks are only representative of us in the minds of grasping polemicists of the cultural left who are desperate to believe the very worst about religious conservatives.