Gene Simmons praises Tim Tebow's family values

Tim Tebow gets a bit of flack for his Christian religious beliefs, and rocker and businessman Gene Simmons thinks the press and critics need to zip it when it comes to picking on the talented fooballer.

“He’s got a religious passion, as well he should, we’re in America,” the KISS frontman told Radio.com earlier this week. ”He’s proud to be a Christian, what’s wrong with that? And yet, with sports media and pop culture media, they make fun of his religion. Really? In America? If he was wearing a burqa, they wouldn’t dare say anything [editor's note: only Muslim women wear burqas]. But if you’re a Christian, you get to be picked on? What the hell? The guy’s got family values. I never saw the media picking on Michael Vick for torturing dogs. Or this other football player, who’s alleged to have killed, committed murder.  That’s ‘cool.’ But a guy who’s religious and has got family values isn’t ‘cool?’ He’s cool to me.”

The website reports that Simmons and his KISS bandmate Paul Stanley are co-owners of a new Arena Football League team, to be called LA KISS. And Simmons made a public offer to quarterback Tim Tebow, who after a brief up-and-down career in the NFL, was released by the New England Patriots a few weeks ago.

The rocker is stil waiting to hear from Tim.

“We haven’t heard back from Tim,” Simmons said. “He’s considering this seriously; he’s in Los Angeles. Right after this, I’m gonna fly back with our guys and try to sit down with him and tell him that we’re serious about this. He’ll get the respect here that he didn’t get at the NFL.”

Simmons, who is Jewish, stood up for Tebow's Passion of the Christ:

“I think religion is good for mankind. Without the Ten Commandments,” he pauses to note, “Jews gave you that,” and continues, “Without that, there’d be chaos. Somebody had to say, ‘Here are some good ideas: don’t steal, and don’t kill.’ Those are good ideas. That’s called ‘civilization.’ There was once a time where those things weren’t written down. You had chaos! We still have chaos, but there’s a reference point. But those are good ideas. Honor thy father and thy mother. That’s a good idea!”