Sad News: David Brudnoy Very Ill

WBZ - Boston ^

[Taliesan]

The unique thing about flesh-and-blood people (as opposed to people in books) is that they are often simultaneously good and bad. An artist might be brilliant with paint yet kick his dog; one might serve soup to the homeless by day yet be unfaithful to the spouse by night. There are men who have charged enemy guns in valor and then abandoned their children. This is not ok, it just is.

So now we have a thread filled with arguments over whether a man was good or bad. Some say "good", some say "bad".

Such a silly argument, based on both sides on a paper-mache notion of what a person is. He was both. He was with no doubt an extraordinary intellect and a grace-filled conversationalist. He was actually interested in his guests without coddling them. He had as clear a consent-based criterion for public morals as any thinker I've ever heard. This is as rare as a Red Sox pennant.

Yet the other stuff may well be true, too. All the nasty stuff on the thread I won't repeat. So what? It matters, but it does not cancel out his good qualities by some tit-for-tat arithmetic. The good is, and the bad is.

Civilized people don't go to wakes and trot out a naughty list and a nice list and calculate a net present value. The reason we don't is that it is mental health for mortals to focus on the good and let God judge the bad.

I am a Christian and a Republican. Homosexuality is wrong and dying of AIDS is not virtuous. I don't agree with libertarians.

Having said all that, what should one say about David Brudnoy? This: "The classiest radio presence I've ever heard: erudite, polite, clearheaded."

Whatever else should be said, God will say, without my help. It is not doubt to speak well of the flawed dead; it is, rather, certainty that I am not the Judge.

[Taliesan]

If you will read the thread closer, you will see that the issue is not whether or not he demised himself immorally; hardly anyone here disputes that.

The issue is: does an immoral act cancel out a moral one?

[Taliesan]

By the way, I do believe this poor, foolish dying man deserves all the prayers possible. He needs them.

Then pray we should. It is hard to both pray for a man and recite his sins.

[Miss Marple]

There is a difference between condemning the action and condemning the person. This is a distinction very difficult to maintain, at times, I do admit.

It is amazing to me how people apparently think that because I have a trace of compassion for Mr. Brudnoy it is assumed that I won't condemn abortion or terrorism. I really have nothing further to say on this subject, but you did flag me and made that rather strange leap of logic; therefore I guess you deserved some sort of answer.

[don-o]

Yes, I am.

Is that all?

[copwife]

Then have sympathy for David. He became celibate after he was diagnosed. He never advertised his homosexuality as he did not want to be a "poster boy" for homosexual activists. He only came out because the media threatened to out him first.

[copwife]

You must go to that church in Kansas.

[dl5192]

af_vet_1981 is a troll. Ignore him.

[Phocion]

Forget it. He's clearly not interested in understanding the man. Only sitting in judgment of him.

If there is a God, I'm sure He will examine Brudnoy's life more deeply than those who don't know him at all and resort to using Google to dig up dirt to post on FR.

[chs68]

I first heard David Brudnoy when I was driving to a wedding in Newport, Rhode Island in 1994.

His intelligence, wit, and grasp of the issues bowled me over.

He is in my prayers.

[Antoninus]

I pray for Brudnoy. I hope he recovers.

I'll never forget an interview with him on the Imus show years ago where Brudnoy basically admitted that he had homo-sex with men even though he knew he had AIDS. If I remember correctly, he even insinuated that he *still* was engaging in gay 'sex.'

May God have mercy on him.

[Antoninus]

Okay, so he contracted a dangerous disease having unnatural homosexual relations. We don't know how many other people contracted the disease due to him. I don't see him as a hero.

Neither do I. He may have said a lot of the right things, but some of his actions were beyond abominable.

[Antoninus]

I don't know about you,but I firmly believe in the concept of Divine Forgiveness.If he makes his peace with God,he'll be OK in God's eyes.

Me too. However, Divine Forgiveness is predicated on the recognition by the individual that he has committed wicked acts and subsequent repentence.

"Go and sin no more."

Angus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.