A modern Jackie Robinson

[Arkady]

An active NBA player just came out as gay, shattering a taboo that persisted for far longer than the color barrier in professional sports:

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/nba_player_jason_collins_comes_out_twitter_reacts/

This took enormous courage. Like Jackie Robinson before him, he has put himself in a position of actual physical risk, while taking on the huge emotional burden of having to be a symbol -- a role model who will be under a kind of personal microscope that even fellow pro athletes can't understand. If you're Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods and your personal life gets messy, you're not letting down an entire community the way Jason Collins would be, as the only gay player.

There's a reason that generation after generation of pro athletes have come and gone with untold players choosing to stay in the closet (including some who came out once retired). It takes unimaginable strength of character to be that kind of pioneer. Perhaps, in a few decades, we'll be seeing movies based on his life.

 

[GordonGecko]

Good bet? Limbaugh talked about it in his first hour, went into his "defending traditional marriage" routine....and then told his audience what he and WIFE NUMBER FOUR did this past weekend.

:laugh:

 

[as seen on tv]

i agree - since black people are especially discriminitory against gays (they voted overwhelming in california to deny gay marriage rights) it took a lot of courage for a black NBA player to come out of the closet.

i dont think it will matter too much to white fans, but his jersey sales to african american fans are likely to decline.

 

[GordonGecko]

i agree - since black people are especially discriminitory against gays (they voted overwhelming in california to deny gay marriage rights) it took a lot of courage for a black NBA player to come out of the closet.

i dont think it will matter too much to white fans, but his jersey sales to african american fans are likely to decline.

Because whites aren't homophobic????

 

[Corruptbuddha]

LOL...Jackie Robinson is rolling in his grave.

 

[EatTheRich]

i agree - since black people are especially discriminitory against gays (they voted overwhelming in california to deny gay marriage rights) it took a lot of courage for a black NBA player to come out of the closet.

i dont think it will matter too much to white fans, but his jersey sales to african american fans are likely to decline.

The Black Panther Party was the first American group that wasn't specifically a gay group to call for gay rights. 30% of Blacks voted for gay marriage rights in California, and a majority of Blacks in California now support same-sex marriage rights, as does the NAACP.

 

[Drumcollie]

Yes we all Remember when Jackie Robinson came into the league and told everybody about what he was doing in the bedroom..and that is why they tried to run him out of the league....civil rights versus how you have sex...not a comparison to make at all...Just lefty politisizing gayness to continue their policy of treating people unequally..

Where was the White House on commending Tim Tebow for being Christian?

 

[EatTheRich]

It's not leftists who decided that gay people should be treated unequally with straight people.

 

[Drumcollie]

It's not leftists who decided that gay people should be treated unequally with straight people.

How much you want to bet lefty...aka....the children...aka...the democrat...aka...the party of slavery...aka..the party of segregation has and does treat people unequally?

 

[EatTheRich]

@DC: You do realize that when the Democrats were supporting slavery and segregation, they were the right-wing party? Did you know that President Lincoln (Republican) corresponded with Karl Marx and appointed an avowed communist as military governor of St. Louis? Did you know that when the Democrats reorganized after the Civil War, in many parts of the South it was as the Conservative Party?

Or perhaps you just want to look around and see how much anti-gay bigotry is coming from Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, as opposed to all other sources?

 

[Arkady]

Yes we all Remember when Jackie Robinson came into the league and told everybody about what he was doing in the bedroom..and that is why they tried to run him out of the league....civil rights versus how you have sex...not a comparison to make at all...Just lefty politisizing gayness to continue their policy of treating people unequally..

Where was the White House on commending Tim Tebow for being Christian?

It's not about how you have sex. I don't know whether Michael Jordan was into doggy-style, or whether Shaquille O'Neal is a fan of oral sex, or whether Larry Bird liked to do it in a haystack. But, in all three cases, I've seen pictures of their wives. I recently saw Shaq and his wife showing off their custom RV on some TV show. That's a level of openness about private lives that the vast majority of athletes have felt comfortable having for as long as there have been professional athletics, without it being noteworthy, much less treated as if it were some sort of kinky exhibitionism. Yet that's a level of openness gay professional athletes universally felt they didn't dare have, until just now.

As for your asinine Tebow comparison, it could hardly be more absurd. The majority of athletes are Christians, and a huge number are extremely vocal in their Christianity, to the point of holding conspicuous worship in front of an audience of millions:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/im...ingtonPost/2011/09/26/Sports/Images/rcv31.jpg

http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/getreligion/files/NFLprayer.jpg

http://www.wlwt.com/image/view/-/17...s-Panthers-NFL-prayer-circle-on-field-jpg.jpg

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Michael+Vick+Wild+Card+Playoffs+Green+Bay+2g6kH0Vhmdpl.jpg

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-g...Chiefs-Panthers-prayer-circle-Belcher-009.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8337/8188793368_c1ea330f39_z.jpg

In the NFL, being an "out" Christian is so commonplace that it's simply not noteworthy. It would actually be much more noteworthy to be an "out" atheist. Tebow's replacement, for example, was Peyton Manning -- also a devout Christian (just one who knows how to read an NFL defense).

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

@DC: You do realize that when the Democrats were supporting slavery and segregation, they were the right-wing party? Did you know that President Lincoln (Republican) corresponded with Karl Marx and appointed an avowed communist as military governor of St. Louis? Did you know that when the Democrats reorganized after the Civil War, in many parts of the South it was as the Conservative Party?

Or perhaps you just want to look around and see how much anti-gay bigotry is coming from Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, as opposed to all other sources?

Drumcollie was doing the Rip Van Winkle thing, taking a very long snooze, from early in 1965 to early in 2009. When she woke up, she was very surprised to find that a black man was President of the United States, and that the Beatles had broken up.

 

[Arkady]

How much you want to bet lefty...aka....the children...aka...the democrat...aka...the party of slavery...aka..the party of segregation has and does treat people unequally?

Oh my God, that was awesome!!!! It's like the Platonic ideal of a Drumcollie post. It's all there -- the incoherence, the incontinent use of ellipses, "the children," the random reference to segregation, etc. If I wanted to lampoon your style, I couldn't have boiled it down to a purer essence of nonsense than that.

 

[bdtex]

I think the article I read said he's 34 years old and a free agent/journeyman. His days in the NBA were already numbered.

 

[fairsheet]

Oh my God, that was awesome!!!! It's like the Platonic ideal of a Drumcollie post. It's all there -- the incoherence, the incontinent use of ellipses, "the children," the random reference to segregation, etc. If I wanted to lampoon your style, I couldn't have boiled it down to a purer essence of nonsense than that.

She's given to vomiting down the front of her bib now and again. And, if for whatever reason you needed to know what she had for lunch, this would be a good example.

 

[Corruptbuddha]

Exactly.

Now he can go on a book tour...the speaking circuit...rainbow in the sky is the limit!