View original postSome basketball player I have never heard of, Jason Collins, finally accepted the implicit open invitation of the national news media to be feted and hailed as the first admitted homosexual athlete in a major US sport. He was referred to as "trailblazing" in a TV column and the blogosphere and sports websites are probably jammed full of similar superlatives. The word "courage" is tossed around in the same month in which a major motion picture has been released about an athlete to whom Collins will undoubtedly draw much comparison, despite being a glaring contrast of the true meaning of the word.

View original postJason Collins is a 34 year old veteran, on the downside of a career that peaked almost ten years ago. He is not a new rookie risking his shot at the NBA. He is not a superstar or acclaimed hero risking his celebrity status. All he has to risk is a possible negative reaction to his sexual orientation, which has little or nothing to do with the reasons why anyone would be remotely interested in him.

View original postFor decades now, individual performers have been openly asserting their variant orientations and there has been no known adverse effect on their employment or the ratings or sales of their work. The professional sports leagues and players unions have all made it clear that their official policy will be one of toleration or acceptance. For more than a decade, this revelation has been anticipated and players have been polled on their speculative reaction to playing with or against such a person. The response has been overwhelmingly accepting, tolerant or indifferent and any negative comments in that regard have met with near universal condemnation or even punishment by authorities and/or high profile commentators. This is nothing like the experiment of playing Jackie Robinson and Collins is in no way blazing a trail. He is merely the first person to set foot on the highway that has been paved and well-lit long in advance of his career. Jackie Robinson certainly did not have the luxury of hiding his differences, and Collins has actually played more years with his now-defining characteristic hidden, than Robinson did altogether. Collins certainly does not have to worry about headhunting pitchers, baserunners sliding in spikes up, or umpires calling unfairly. He does not have to worry about full-on contact as football players and hockey players do, nor about the goons and bounties that are practices, legal or not, of those two sports.

View original postThere is no downside to Collins for his exposure, but in a sphere of activity where a great deal of financial remuneration can be linked to exposure, he might very well stand to gain significantly from his revelation. In addition, he has set himself up from all sorts of laudatory attention for his supposed courage. In a world where words like "fag" may not even be directed at straight people without severe punishment, for even the elite players (Kobe Bryant was recently given a six figure fine by the NBA for doing so), Collins not only is free from fear of verbal abuse, but he is effectively immunized from other criticism or hostility, lest the one who gives voice to such sentiments be labeled homophobic.

View original postAnd while all this was going on, on the same page of a newspaper where a basketball mediocrity was grabbing headlines from the two local teams currently involved in the playoffs, there was an article about Tim Tebow's release from the NY Jets. Tebow, while embraced by many fans for his refusal to shy away from, or downplay, his religion, was a frequent target of mockery inspired by much the same reason. Tebow, in a world where media coverage is far more overtly hostile to his degree of Christianity than homosexuality, did not conceal his religion until he was 34. Unlike quite a few NFL players, he was not known for attention-getting displays, or self-glorification, but was frequently implied to be, for his habit of using a brief but common act of devotion to celebrate on-field accomplishments. The article attempted to suggest as much with a snide comment that Tebow never "got to" perform his trademark touchdown celebration, which basically consists of going down on one knee, and has been attributed to him, as if this is some sort of flamboyant gesture invented by Tebow. (taking a quick knee is controversial, but jiggling around the end zone in a choreographed salsa dance is cute and endearing. Yeah, the sports world is SUCH a scary place for homosexuals ) In fact, 26 years ago, in Super Bowl XXI, Mark Bavaro of the NY Giants went down on one knee and made the sign of the cross after scoring his touchdown. It was not much remarked upon at the time, because he had been doing it all season, and likely before that. Taking a knee and praying after a score is neither unique to Tebow, nor even the most flagrantly religious form of celebration seen in the sport, despite attempts to paint him as a freak. Aside from his frankness when asked about the subject, I have not seen or heard anything to pick him out as a particularly religious or devout individual, but he cannot make a move, or have one made regarding him, without God and religion being brought into it, and generally in a negative way. If there are half as many mocking references to Jason Collins' homosexuality on The Onion's sports page two years from now as there are already posted about Tim Tebow's religion, I will be astonished. We know that most of those jokes will be targeted at critics of homosexuality, as opposed to Tebow's jokes which are at the expense of him or practitioners of his religion.

View original postJust as a personal note, I would like to point out that I am not remotely sympathetic to Tebow for the religious issue. From my perspective, the difference between Tim Tebow and Osama bin Laden, religiously speaking, is that Tebow should know better. I have watched exactly two games where he played, and was rooting against him each time. Collins, meanwhile, played for the closest thing I have to a favorite basketball team, at the high point of the franchise's success. This is still a stupid story that has garnered entirely too much attention.