Do Americans Care More About Dogs Than Women?

The NFL season started last weekand recaptured the attention of the American people.  The NFL is clearly the most popular sport in America, and this week, its most talked about player this year, Michael Vick was placed on the active roster for the Philadelphia Eagles, and he is eligible to play in week 3. 

Michael Vick is clearly the most controversial player to enter the NFL due to his conviction for dog fighting two years ago.  The thoughts of protest and boos, debates of whether he should play or be suspend have consumed the sports world for a while now.  Maybe we find his crime so disturbing because we are not used to stories of the torture of animals and dogfighting making the front page of newspapers, or maybe it is because we can’t envision someone we cheered for doing something so terrible, or most likely we can’t imagine the mind set of someone who would do something so terrible. 

While Vick’s crime was shocking other NFL players and other sports atheletes do terrible things.  NFL player Brandon Marshell has repeatedly been accused of domestic violence, but if he does it one more time then he gets a four game suspension.  However, no body is protesting whether or not Brandon Marshell should be allowed to play or should have to work with his community to repair his image.  Fighting dogs and torturing living animals is terrible(clearly an understatement), but domestic violence is often overlooked.  The message becomes don’t kick a dog ever, but you can hit your wife or girlfriend and eventually you might be in trouble.  Maybe the American public needs more education about the seriousness of domestice violence, but we seem to care less about abused women than we do about abused animals.