Controversial Fox News host Glenn Beck has announced that he has been diagnosed with a condition called macular dystrophy, a rare genetic and progressive eye disease that could lead to blindness.

He spoke about how he learned of the diagnosis during one of his American Revival Tour events (this one in Salt Lake City).  As he has been known to do on several occasions, he teared up while delivering the news to his audience.  While over-the-top on-camera emoting by Beck (and others) can often be annoying and suspect (I can be cynical too), in this case, it’s only fair to assume genuineness. Who wouldn’t have trouble keeping it together under similar circumstances?

As a simultaneously extremely popular and unpopular radio and TV host and a bestselling author (his novel The Overton Window debuted at #1 on the NY Times list), it’s probably fair to say that he (not Howard Stern) is the currently reigning “King of All Media.”

His supporters say he’s speaking truth to power. His detractors say he is hateful and point to a joke he once made about political correctness and blind people as evidence of karma at work.

What he said was this:

“I work at Radio City in midtown Manhattan, and up by the doors, you
know, like where the — you know — the office kitchen is, in Braille, on the
wall, it says ‘kitchen.’ You’d have to — a blind person would have to be
feeling all of the walls to find “kitchen.” Just to piss them off, I’m going to
put in Braille on the coffee pot — I’m going to put, ‘Pot is hot.’
Ow!”

To be honest, I often wondered about the actual usefulness of such signs to actual blind people and to joke about them doesn’t seem to be beyond the pale to me. Now, the part about the coffee pot may have been a bit much, but is it really more hateful than what a Bill Maher spews on a regular basis?  Is it any worse than this SNL skit mocking David Patterson, the blind governor of New York? Is it any worse than many of the comments you can easilly find regarding Beck’s diagnosis in the liberal blogosphere?  All in all, I think making too much of that one joke is just another case of selective outrage.

It also seems to me that bringing up karma here points to the danger inherent in misusing the karma concept.  Sure, there is wisdom and truth in the idea that living a positive life tends to reap positive results but wisdom (and compassion) also dictates a recognition that people who suffer are not to be judged as somehow deserving of their suffering.

Beck has also come under fire by Catholics and other Christians who were offended by his call to avoid churches that preach “social justice.”  Here’s an amusing discussion of that subject between Stephen Colbert and Catholic writer Fr. James Martin on The Colbert Report.

I don’t think you have to agree with Beck’s overall conclusion to defend him here.  Of course, Christians believe in social justice. I certainly do. The question has always been how to achieve it. And, I think it’s fair to say that the concept of social justice, like Christianity itself, has often been usurped by political agendas (right and left).

Certain (not all) leftists have no use for religion in general but have no problem using “social justice” to guilt out Christians (who really do want to be good people) into supporting even ill-advised expansions of government power. Once the term is applied, thinking is no longer required or even desired.

In any event, I tend to vacillate between thinking the guy’s a bit nuts and wondering why the rest of the media isn’t at least looking into some of the issues he brings up. I don’t think he’s a “hater” though, a word which itself has become the modern-day equivalent of “communist” as a means of labeling and marginalizing political opponents.

The bottom line is Glenn Beck is a human being facing a serious medical problem. Like Christopher Hitchens, Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan or anyone else facing difficult times, he deserves compassion and prayers.