I have no idea what Garrison Keillor did, other than it was something sexual involving a woman; and it was a surprise and a disappointment to me that he was banished from public radio. And yes, it appears that his work has been made invisible, like the work of Bill Cosby and whatever Cardinal Pell did.

My question is not about the comparative guilt of these three men - but I do think that the banishment of their work was comparable. My question is whether their accomplishments must be made invisible and never spoken of favorably. The same thing seems to be happening with Harvey Weinstein movies, despite the fact that most of the people involved in production of those movies were totally innocent - and some were victims of Weinstein's malicious conduct.

We've had a thread that had a lot of traffic over the years. I started it in 2008, asking about hymn writer Ernest Sands. Over the 8-year life of the thread, we learned that Ernest Sands had been a Catholic priest, that he had molested children, and that he eventually committed suicide. Most likely, he was a very troubled man, but he wrote two hymns that remain very popular in the Catholic Church and other denominations. One is a catchy song in 5/4 time called "Sing of the Lord's Goodness." The other is "Song of Farewell," a very moving interpretation of the ancient "In Paradisum" prayer that closes Catholic funerals:

May the choirs of angels come to greet you
May they lead you to Paradise.
May the Lord enfold you in His mercy,
May you find eternal life.

There's real power and real compassion in that song. It's a wonderful song, and I think the author's horrible sexual misconduct cannot detract from the song.

But it's a difficult thing to consider the art of someone who has conducted himself horribly in "real life." I don't think there are easy answers.
-Joe-