I'd like to know all the circumstances, but I doubt they played "King of the Mountain" to get to that microphone. Someone in the family must have allowed/approved those who spoke. That's the way it worked at any funeral I've ever attended. I don't know how a string of expletives honors anyone. What makes it even worse, is that he participates in showing the tape years later as some kind of badge of honor.
Sure, no one probably had a problem letting them speak, but his brother had a problem with what was said. He was probably proud for what he felt was honoring his dead brother's memory and from what it sounds like, would have appreciated the gesture. My own father is dying and isn't religious and has repeatedly said that he doesn't want a funeral and wants to be cremated and spread over his favorite fishing spot in Baffin Bay. My grandmother and stepmother are very religious christians however and will probably fight me over it when it comes time. To them what THEY believe matters more than what HE believed. And I think that's wrong...
It was not just the brother's loss. Others expressed their grief in a context that comforted them, while the brother, Richard, subtly criticized them with a string of "F-Bombs" which hardly seems comforting to anybody. Just anger out of control.
Do you believe that it's ok for a person to impose their beliefs on to the deceased person at their own funeral, as long as it comforts them despite the families beliefs?
Expression is not imposition. What did they expect an American politician to say? Are you saying that McCain et al should have let forth with some ripe atheisms to comfort the family? What they said was fairly generic and mild... and they were invited. Are you implying that those speakers defied the family's wishes?
It certainly can be. Low expectations don't make it ok! Of course not, but it would have been good for he and Maria to at least learn a bit more about the deceased other than his CV. Whatever their intentions were, it certainly looks like they didn't do their homework, made assumptions about the deceased and his family, and were using the event to score some easy PR. No. There's no need to imply it. His brother made it pretty clear.
Defied? Really!? Hadn't heard about that... When they invited outsiders in, they lost control over the content.
Expression can be imposition when you express that the deceased who didn't believe in God just as his family didn't believe in God is now with God. That is imposition. McCain and the other politicians could have spoken about Tillman's life, and left God out of the equation. Yes the speakers obviously acted contrary to the family's wishes, thus the brother(part of the family) mentioned it.
Really? When my dad died we told the "fire and brimstone" pastor of the Baptist church of my dad's youth, "no fire and brimstone" and despite our "lost control" he acquiesced to the family wishes.
If you clearly communicate your wishes, you won't lose control. There has not been a whit of evidence that McCain et al "defied" the wishes of the Tillman family. I haven't been aware of any criticism of the remarks of others until someone in the family was trying, 3 years later, to sell a book.... now that's ironic.
Did anyone make a fuss at the time... or is it just now? I was challenging the assertion that McCain et al defied the family's wishes. I've seen no evidence of that.
The brother clearly made a fuss at the time. He mentioned it at the funeral itself after the politicians spoke. The media didn't make a fuss, and they aren't now. The politicians who spoke got their PR out of it, and that was it. It was only on one show which is on HBO that even brought it up. Who cares what the media thought then, or thinks now. This isn't about that. It's about people imposing their view on others including the deceased and his family at the funeral.
Then you didn't watch the clip from the actual funeral. At the funeral itself before there even was a book, the brother made a point to let the politicians know he didn't appreciate what they had done. He didn't just come out about this 3 years later. He made an issue of it at the time.
Criticizing a person for his reaction to the loss of his brother and the circumstances surrounding his loss is so you.
He wasn't reacting to the loss of his brother. He was reacting to the remarks made by others in tribute to his deceased brother.
I watched the video. How do you think I knew he had acted boorishly? It is coming up for air NOW when there is a book for sale.
Don't you think his grieving for the loss of his brother maybe had an impact on the way he reacted to McCain and Shriver's comments? Some things supersede being gracious and polite.
do you know how books like this work? They talk about things that happened in the recent past. The fact that the book talks about it brings it up again. The key word there is "again". It isn't like he was silent on it, and only brings it up now that the book is coming out. He talked about it the instant it happen. His offense was instantaneous and genuine. Now that he's writing about it, he's talking about it again. It isn't really overly opportunistic, and it isn't the first time it's been brought up. I'm not sure why you are acting like it's only coming up now that the book is coming out. The truth is that it is coming out AGAIN now that the book is coming out. When Deepthroat was announced people talked about watergate again. That doesn't mean that it wasn't ever brought up previously.
