▪️ EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece was first published in American Thinker. You can link to it here.▪️
The Telegraph (U.K.) published a story on August 1st entitled “Boy George splits from label manager over pro-Israel song.”
It seems Boy George — who those of us of a certain, ahem, vintage, recall as one of the first openly cross-dressing artists with a series of huge hit songs — is very pro-Israel, but his manager, Tony Pontius, wanted nothing to do with his client’s new pro-Israel song. Boy George, who is not Jewish, by the way, then fired him.
The irony here is impossible to miss.
Let’s recall our biblical history, at least as most Christians view it: Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death and ordered his crucifixion. Capitulating, as it were, to the mob. He also tried to distance himself from it. “Wash his hands” of it, wanting nothing to do with the controversy surrounding his own orders.
Now, here we have Tony Pontius, distancing himself from the controversy that would surely erupt should he publish George’s pro-Israel song. According to the Telegraph’s story, Boy George’s open support for the state of Israel was already causing him trouble in his social circles, and his manager no doubt wanted nothing of it for him professionally. So he “washed his hands” of it, as it were, by relegating the song to death by refusing to publish it.
Good for Boy George firing him.
Now, these two events, to be crystal clear, are not on the same moral plane, but Tony Pontius’ name jumped out at me when I read the story and it was too ironic to let go unobserved.