Ben Roethlisberger Gets Married, Succeeds In Making Pittsburgh Forget Sexual Assault Allegations - SB Nation

Dear readers, I must admit I've been confused about what, if anything, to post about Ben Roethlisberger's wedding. I mean, for the most part, I couldn't care less about it, just as I couldn't care less about any stupid celebrity wedding. But on the other hand, if you're Steelers fan, I suppose it's a big story, and a lot of what's being written about it makes my skin crawl.

We can only guess at Roethlisberger's motivations for getting married so soon after being connected to multiple sex scandals. But his taking-a-wife-and-settling-down routine is straight out of the Image Rehabilitation Handbook, as is the'I don't go out, I just do things around the house'routine, as is the"God is good"routine.

Again, who knows what Roethlisberger's motivations for getting married are? I don't, and I concede it's possible that they're entirely wholesome, and that the events of last summer were a wake-up call. But the whole thing seems really creepy to me.

Which is why I find a lot of the breathless commentary I've seen in the local media over the past couple of days to be so bizarre. The story here, plainly, is that this guy is getting married less than a year and a half after being accused of rape. That's not something Steelers fans want to hear, but it's in the back of everyone's minds, so we might as well come out and say it.

But, for some reason, a lot of people don't. For example,here's the ledefrom the Post-Gazette story about the wedding.

Ben Roethlisberger is no longer the single best quarterback in Pittsburgh.

Get it? Because he's now the married best quarterback in Pittsburgh! I get that the reporter was sent to cover a wedding and provide details on it, but how can you start an article like this with a double entendre that's supposed to be funny? This isn't just any celebrity wedding here.

Oh, and then there's this:

The men's servings came from a three-tier groom's cake -- a "camouflage topsy turvy cake, complete with the inscription 'The Hunt is Over,' " Ms. Weiner said.

How in the world could anyone have thought that was a good idea? How could anyone have failed to make the connection between "hunting" a woman, and, you know, being predatory with a woman?

I don't mean to single out the Post-Gazette article here. It's only one of many, many articles about the Roethlisberger wedding that have missed the real lede here. The whole thing is very strange. I mean, good luck to them both, but it's strange.