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NBA Player Jason Collins Comes Out – Religious Right Apoplectic
more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson
NBA center Jason Collins has come out. On April 29, he announced to the world that he’s gay. He is the first active professional male athlete to do so. He is now 34, near the end of his playing career, and that’s not a bad legacy to leave behind: the statement that its okay to be who you are.
While we celebrate his courage, some Christians condemn him – and us – for not being offended. As they say in churches across the nation,” it’s a sign of the times that people would rather come out of the closet than clean it.”
People like NFL hall of famer Jim Brown lauded Collins’ courage, as did Barack Obama, who called Collins to tell him so personally, and WWE great and movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, tweeted:
“Being real & authentic is very powerful. Well done Jason Collins for having the courage to take a monumental step forward. #LiveReal.
But others have been less positive, including Miami Dolphins wide receiver Mike Wallace, who semingly doesn’t get why Collins doesn’t dig women like any “normal” guy. Pat Robertson says it’s okay to call Collins an “abomination” and one ESPN reporter, Chris Broussard, said if Collins is gay, he can’t be a Christian because he is “walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ.”
And religious bigot Matt Barber tweeted this:
But of course, being gay is not aberrant. Thousands of animals species engage in homosexual behavior. Oh wait, I forgot that Bryan Fischer says being gay is a birth defect, and then there are those are gay animal demons….
They talked about the situation on NFL Network’s NFL AM this morning. Host Nicole Zaloumis said, “Our hats off to Jason Collins.” Former NFL safety Eric Davis said on the show that as a player, all that matters is what you do on the field (or the court, in basketball) and that as an analyst, all that matters is what a player shows on the game film. Sexuality is not, and should not, be an issue.
But conservative talk show host Steve Deace, author of We Won’t Get Fooled Again: Where the Christian Right Went Wrong and How to Make America Right Again, who is (no surprise) a big star on Fox News and World Net Daily, is royally pissed off that we’re not all pissed off, not to say horrified, that Jason Collins felt he could be honest about who he is.
Deace tweeted, “It’s got to the liberal, humanistic god’s judgment on America for Tebow to be cut the same day of the Jason Collins story. #karma.
I didn’t even know religious bigots like Steve Deace could use the word “karma” without getting zapped by God.
Deace took to Facebook to express his own outrage:
Stories like this one surrounding Jason Collins demonstrate perfectly how indoctrinated an aspect of our culture has become. They are basically fascists, with no tolerance for dissent or diversity at all. Meanwhile, I’m supposedly intolerant despite the fact I have rooted for players for years whose beliefs and morals I don’t agree with because they were good at what they did. I looked past the areas we disagreed and applauded their God-given talents (and the work they put in honing them) instead. If I were all of you, I wouldn’t expect the same favor returned in the brave, new world we’re heading into.
I don’t know if Deace was able to keep a straight face as he typed this. But it was only a matter of time before religious bigots claimed to be the ones on the side of tolerance and diversity as they fight for a world full of white Evangelicals.
He went on to invoke Tim Tebow,
So Tim Tebow, marginal NFL player, gets killed by liberal sportswriters for being a media-driven concoction because of his beliefs. But Jason Collins, a far more marginal NBA player who averages less than 2 points per game, is exalted by that same media for his beliefs. Apparently preferring to have sex with other guys is a profile in courage nowadays.
Deace portrays both his lack of knowledge and his prejudices, just as did Bryan Fischer when he claimed people hate Tebow because they hate Jesus. Tebow has two full seasons under his belt in the NFL, one as a starter, and one as a guy who polishes the bench with his backside. He was just released, as Deace complained. Collins, meanwhile, has played well enough to have a career spanning 14 seasons. In fact, as Collins writes in Sports Illustrated,
I’ve played for six pro teams and have appeared in two NBA Finals. Ever heard of a parlor game called Three Degrees of Jason Collins? If you’re in the league, and I haven’t been your teammate, I surely have been one of your teammates’ teammates. Or one of your teammates’ teammates’ teammates.
And Collins has averaged 3.6 points per game, not “less than” 2. He was felt to be valuable enough to the Nets that before the 04-05 seasons began, he received a $25 million contract extension to play in New Jersey for another five years. Tebow, on the other hand, is currently out of work, and may never find work again; his new formation is the unemployment line. The consensus view of sportswriters seems to be that Tebow will play long enough to have a game about him, and not because of his religious beliefs.
That’s right. You heard me. As for Tim Tebow’s martyrdom. I have not seen it. I watch TV too and I follow football almost religiously, both online and off. I have yet to see Tebow condemned for anything other than his inability to play quarterback. His religion is not even mentioned, even during long and often heated debates. In point of fact, the media ignores Tebow’s religion even when Tebow associates with rabidly anti-gay preachers.
But really, the relative playing abilities of these two men is not the issue, and Deace knows that. But like most conservative religious bigots, he needs a straw man. The issue is the belief espoused by Deace and Barber and others that everybody has to be the same, that we all have to worship a god (the same god, and not to put too fine a point upon it, their god), and we all have to be heterosexual. It is significant and revealing that Collins and other gay athletes are not insisting that everybody has to be gay. Collins just wants to be able to be gay without having to hide it.
As Collins wrote in Sports Illustrated, “I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, ‘Me, too.’”
And now he has. Deace has a write to think being gay is wrong. Barber has a right to think it’s shameful. But they have no right to demand we agree with them. And if they have the right to condemn Collins for being gay and us for supporting him, we have an equal right to condemn them for their religion-based bigotry and intolerance.
Conservative Christians are not fighting for diversity. Diversity is the enemy of conservative Christianity. Diversity for people like Deace and Barber means simply a privileging of their views over ours, just as for them, religious freedom means their religious freedom and theirs alone.
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13 Responses to NBA Player Jason Collins Comes Out – Religious Right Apoplectic
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Lina Gillespie
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 6:40 pm
People hold the bible like it was the end all book! People! It’s a book! It was written by men not by God I hate to break it to you! Gay man, gay woman it doesn’t matter the fact that does matter is we were all created by God! If you truly want to believe in God!
Corey Mondello
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 7:04 pm
Great article, shared, last paragraph summed it up easily for anyone who doesn’t understand. I like to remind people that the Puritans came to America so they could practice their religion freely, however, every other religion that followed was treated horribly, people banished, lynched, all because they weren’t the right kind of Christian. Since that time, there has been, what I call the American Taliban, made up of mostly white conservative Christians who have always been against equality. They fought against the end of slavery, allowing woman to vote and anything in between. They are what is a danger to America and Americans and the rest if the world for that matter.
Churchlady320
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 10:46 pm
That sort of conflates several divergent streams. Puritans WERE religiously intolerant – of the Baptists and all others. Today it’s the Evangelicals and later the Pentecostals who benefit from the separation of church and state since if the Puritans had THEIR way, the latter two would be paying town dues to the Congregational churches. These folks – descendants of the Puritans – were the FIRST to recognize and embrace marriage equality. The beneficiaries of religious tolerance? The last.
Look – the religious right can get itself all hellfired and brimstoned all it wants. So what? They have already lost the battle AND the war. Christianity is NOT on their side, and three creepy passages in the OT won’t uphold them. The New Testament is about inclusion, love, acceptance, and if they can’t deal with it, tough.
So the ARE the Religious Right – but the are also the Religious Incorrect. Only in political direction does the word, right, mean anything.
Godhi Dagr Gyldir
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 7:10 pm
This is more and more my point of why as I get older and the prudes get more stupid the reasons I am growing to despise not just Christianity but all of the faiths that are based off the judeo-christian ethic and yes people Islam falls in that category. there are good people in each but they are outnumbered by the power hungry hate mongers that do everything they can to covert or destroy everything that does not follow their path.
Shiva
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 7:40 pm
I am certainly happy to see you still believe in me.
Churchlady320
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 10:48 pm
Well go tell that to the late Bob Edgar, to Rev. King, To Bishops Shelby Spong and Gene Robinson, to the millions standing FOR GLBT equality and marriage rights for all.
That’s as much a bigoted knee jerk reaction as that of the religious right.
Elizabeth 44
May. 1st, 2013 at 4:07 pm
I agree that the power/control religious freaks seem to outnumber those who are good people who quietly live their religion and don’t demand others do just as they do. I wonder if this “upper hand” has to do with the media. It is much more exciting to talk about hate and name calling and “shocked” than to report that 10 Christians spent half their day trying to provide services to the street people.
djchefron(Moderator)
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 7:10 pm
The American Taliban will not stop.They should be called out anytime they come out.Every Time
As for fellow African American brothers who full of hate,all I can say is pick up a damn book sometime,read it and learn.The same people you think are your allies in your campaign of hate,think about this.They hate you even more and would deny you your rights as soon as they deny someone who is gay theirs.
BTW and I dont mean to sound crass but why do you care who is fucking who?And where are your so called moral principles at when your teammates are fucking every groupie this side of the Mississippi
James Threadgill
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 8:13 pm
The closet does need cleansing. Let’s start with pseudo-religious homophobes and move immediately to the insatiably greedy rich and we really need to do something about all the race haters while we’re at it.
Can I get an amen?
labman57
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 9:23 pm
Ignorance is bliss, intolerance is divine, empathy for the socio-economically downtrodden is shunned, and racism and homophobia are thriving among the self-righteous pundits of the Religious Right … which certainly explains why these folks are so enamored with the scientifically-illiterate, socially regressive, and sanctimonious leaders of the conservative faction within the Republican Party.
Churchlady320
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 10:52 pm
The Religious Right is a shrinking faction. Day by day the movement toward justice, inclusion, embrace of all people is growing bound by people of faiths and those of none but of profound decency.
Yes, the Dominionists are among us, slavering for theocratic power over us all, and they LOST the last election and are losing everything they try to do.
The mainstream in America, faith and secular, is moving increasingly toward political dominance once again as they did in abolition, in labor rights, in child protection and women’s rights, in anti-war, anti-nuke, and pro GLBT issues. THAT, not the fading conservatism, is the REAL story.
Churchlady320
Apr. 30th, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Let them BE apoplectic. They’ll stroke out and be gone.
majii
May. 1st, 2013 at 1:59 am
Steve Deace: “They are basically fascists, with no tolerance for dissent or diversity at all.”
Deace can’t see the beam in his own eye for looking at the speck in other people’s eye. IMO, he accurately describes himself and those who think like he does about LGBTQ persons. They think that they should be able to say all kinds of bigoted sh*t and get no pushback. Those days are over. Just the fact that they want to shut up those of us who support LGBTQ Americans shows that it is they who are the intolerant fascists that abhor diversity. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve encountered someone on the right who says that multiculturalism/homosexuality are the most evil things in the universe. They’re not. IMO, the worst thing in the universe are those people who stick their damn noses into everyone else’s business and assume that they have the right to tell others how to live their lives when many of them are doing the same things they condemn the rest of us for doing.