Taunting Tebow, Low blow?

I don't care for football, but even I know who Tebow is. (Glory, glory, Man. United!) Well this morning I saw an article in my news feed by Jay Hart. It was a piece defending Tebow and discounting all his detractors as bitter and/or hateful. It also frames around a rant against Tebow from Merril Hoge. The story goes on to declare that people don't hate Tebow because he's bad, but because he's good... too good to be true in fact. That he's only guilty of being a wonderful role model and then there's the old claim that he's being persecuted for his faith. However, I find it ridiculous to claim that the reason he is persecuted is because of his religion when the United States is 78.4% Christians. I hear that he's apparently not very good. But I can imagine this only mattering to fans of whatever team he's playing for at that time. So every fan of every other team should be happy if a rival quarterback isn't very good, and thus, should make life easier for their favored team. I think that it's more to do with when he gets political and proselytizes. As I stated before, most Americans (and NFL fans) are Christians, yet a good chunk seem to also take issue with him despite their shared faith. Come to think of it, maybe Tim got his calling wrong. Perhaps he's not good at football (assuming that's so) because he's supposed to be playing the other football (soccer). Perhaps Tebow was supposed to be a goalkeeper. After all, Jesus saves!

 I think that the problem comes from every other word he says being "Thank Jesus". (Not to mention the silly pose he popularized) When other Christians are getting tired of hearing you say "Jesus", you most likely sound like a broken record. He does seem to live a fairly good life (in many meanings of that phrase), but I would stop shy of calling him a stand-up role model though. In my book, a role model leads by example and that's it. His proselytizing means that he is actually trying to tell people how to live, and by association, that any way other than his own is morally repugnant, wrong, and worthy of the torture his religion teaches. I have no problem with him having a load of faith. To each his own. The fact that we can believe what (and as much) as we want is part of what makes America great. But telling others how they should live their lives (and what happens if you don't) disallows me from granting him role-model status despite his otherwise 'clean' life. So no Mr. Hart, I don't think that people dislike Tebow because he is 'too good to be true'... at least not most of them. I don't follow American football, but what I do know about this Tebow bloke leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Do I dislike him because of his skill level? No. I've never even seen him play. So I couldn't even comment on that. Is it because he's a Christian? No. I have no problem with people being Christian if they aren't trying to force their views on others. Is it because he's such a great role model? Don't be ridiculous! Good role models are a great thing. The problem is, that his proselytizing excludes him from being the role model that his fans posit him to be. So when Hart claims that Tebow's detractors are acting as if they are holier than thou, when it is actually Tebow acting as such through his proselytizing.

-BH