Much to my chagrin but not my surprise, the reaction to Jason Collins revealing his homosexuality has been a mixed bag of support and criticism. With his announcement in Sports Illustrated on Monday, Collins became the first openly gay athlete actively participating in a major professional sport.
"If players don't learn to tolerate homosexuality amongst their teammates, and if their organizations continue to compound the masculine orthodoxy dominating locker rooms, nobody should expect a professional athlete to come out of the closet anytime soon."
For those who don't recognize this beautiful prose, I wrote these words just two months ago. The NBA, however, has proved me wrong by showing a soft spot for a bold trailblazer.
The vast majority of NBA players, those most likely to recoil at sharing a locker room with a gay man, have showered Collins with support and respect. From the league's superstars to Collins' countless former teammates he's been on seven teams during his 12-year career the NBA has focused on his courage, work ethic and stature as a great teammate. These are traits we universally celebrate in professional sports, and whether they are manifested in a gay or straight athlete should be beside the point.
When the announcement went public, ESPN's Outside the Lines discussed the momentous event. While featuring commentary from a range of openly gay sports journalists, the episode also provided an outlet for respected NBA-insider Chris Broussard to remind us that "living an open homosexual lifestyle" constitutes "walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ." Attempting to prove he wasn't picking on gays, Broussard shared his medieval perspective on premarital sex: that those who engage in the activity are "openly living in unrepentant sin."
But this sort of crazy is nothing compared to the Westboro Baptist Church. After the outpouring of support from all corners of the NBA, the Topeka-based church's worst nightmares were confirmed: "the @NBA is full of fags," they tweeted.
The primary activity of most churches is prayer. The primary activity for Westboro Baptist is protest. Name an event that deserves respect, from Marines' funerals to Holocaust memorials, and they've probably protested it. Taking to Twitter to reach their benighted followers, Westboro Baptist has organized a protest outside of tonight's matchup, where the Houston Rockets will host the Oklahoma City Thunder. The 11-hour drive from Topeka to Houston must seem insignificant compared to the eternal damnation awaiting those who passively permit the NBA's corruption by sinful forces.
While the activities of Westboro Baptist are plainly abhorrent, there's another strain of criticism against Collins and the NBA, one which sees Collins' carefully orchestrated, even sterile disclosure as irrelevant. This perspective is crystallized in a segment of "The Daily Show" in which Jon Stewart runs through a list of the shameful, often criminal acts committed by professional athletes, including Mike Tyson, Michael Vick and Tiger Woods.
"Congratulations, gay athletes," Stewart drawls. "Are you sure you want to hang out with these people?"
I find this to be a particularly disingenuous line of argumentation.
Stewart usually confines his parodies to the political system, berating politicians for their selfishness and hypocrisy. But upon the election of the first black president, a landmark moment in American history, Stewart didn't debase the accomplishment by invoking the problems of politics.
"Kennedy was a philanderer, Nixon a crook, Clinton a liar, and Bush an idiot. Mr. Obama, do you really want to be one of these people?"
Could you possibly imagine those words on The Daily Show?
Stewart then turns to correspondent Jason Jones, who laments that Collins is neither famous enough nor flamboyant enough to be the gay community's first active ambassador to major professional sports. In his words, Jones found the entire issue "boring." Some fights worth fighting are boring. Until the dam burst open in the 1960s, the fight for civil rights in the Jim Crow South was "boring."
Collins wasn't trying to change the world with his announcement, just provide the world with an accurate representation of himself. Each time this process repeats, it will be a little less boring.
