I understand what your're saying about rebuke and not suffering sin. But publicly? It would devastate his father who's an old man. It would break his spirit and kill him. And then Mel would live have to with that. I couldn't do it. I'd shoot myself first.
I understand the culture in asSharq alAwsat is different. I know that Udai and Qusay had a very difficult time rebuking their father. I know that Bashar had a very difficult time rebuking his father. I know that any offspring of Yasser would have a difficult time rebuking him. I know all this.
The Gibson family is not like any of those families. Mel would not lightly rebuke his father for minor issues. He would respect him. The Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism are not minor issues. I find no Biblical excuse for a genuine Christian to hold his peace in the face of a such clear public sin by a parent. He should definitely go to him privately first, one on one. Should that fail, and the sin persist, he should go to him with other members of his Church (but we have a problem there, no ?). When the sin becomes so public we have another problem. In fact, the problem with 4% of the fathers in the Catholic Church of this generation was that too many people held their peace and kept if quite private.
Now Hutton's sin is no where as notorious as that of that minority of fathers, yet who knows if someone had rebuked them earlier what lives might have been spared ? Open rebuke is better than secret love. Open sin should be rebuked, both for the sinner and those who are affected and influenced by such sin. Hutton Gibson has clearly sinned and no one is doing him any favors by not addressing it.