If athlete and NFL commentator Deion Sanders wants to keep that punter’s foot out of his mouth, he should probably stick to talking about football.
In an interview Wednesday on Larry King Now, Sanders says he reached out to openly gay football player Michael Sam because he has a cousin who’s gay. Which would have been a nice sentiment if he’d left it at that.
But he continued.
“I’m not saying condone it,” he told King, “but I don’t condemn it. I don’t love what he do but I love him as a man.” Sanders, who has publicly expressed support for Sam in the past, said it was important for Sam to “understand the burden and the weight that he’s carrying.”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Naturally, King couldn’t resist asking Sanders if he thought being gay was a choice, and the athlete paused before answering. “It could be,” he said.
Watch the clip below.
AtticusBennett
breaking news: intellectually feeble pro-athlete says utterly asinine statement, showing he’s not that bright, not that educated, and whose religious beliefs extend as far as his bigoted preacher/pastor allows.
*yawn*
Alan down in Florida
The stereotype of a dumb jock came into existence because of moments like this.
McShane
“The God I know don’t make mistakes.” -Deion Sanders
*doesn’t
jason smeds
There is nothing wrong with saying sexual behavior is a choice. All behavior is a choice. We can say yes, no or maybe to all forms of behavior, including sexual.
The problem I have is when critics of homosexuality confuse relationships with experiences. Relationships come from the soul, experiences come from impulse. The men who engage in homosexual behavior as part of their relationships are not acting on impulse but on a deep-seated yearning that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Most men are capable of homosexual experiences, including straight-identifying men. However, I doubt that such men are interested in homosexual relationships. Critics of homosexuality shouldn’t confuse the two.
NiceNCool1
They just refuse to take our word for it. We are left to think we’re being called liars I guess.
Jonathan26
I wouldn’t read to much into that one comment. I’ve heard he’s a good guy and boy is he dreamy!
jason smeds
Also, a lot of these men who say homosexuality is a choice are saying it from experience. They have chosen, at various times in their lives, to either partake or refuse the homosexual temptation. This is why they see it as a choice.
They are speaking from the perspective of the impulse which drives sexually driven men towards finding relief with an available human being regardless of gender. I would say that almost all straight-identifying men have this impulse in them.
Xzamilio
“The God I know don’t make mistakes.”
Shocking… ignorance with religion right behind it.
TomMc
It is a choice: to be honest, or not.
BJ McFrisky
Technically, it IS a choice for the bi’s, so I guess Deion is bi.
TomMc
@BJ McFrisky: Intriguing point, and good counterexample (word choice?).
Thanks for making me think about what I penned earlier BJ McFrisky. Your gentle intellect is much appreciated.
cflekken
I was ready with all kinds of volatile comments directed toward Deion, but, you know, what he said was harmless, IMO. His response tells me that he just doesn’t understand homosexuality. And maybe he hasn’t had a need to. He loves his cousin for who his cousin is, not whom he beds. IMO, that’s a positive outlook as it doesn’t appear (based on this interview) that he is passing judgement.
Stache99
First he says..“I’m not saying condone it,” and then..“The God I know don’t make mistakes.”
If God doesn’t make mistakes then why are you against it. Makes no sense if you truly believe that.
Stache99
@AtticusBennett: Why is it that these assholes are the ones we have to listen to and not someone actually educated on the subject. It’s akin to watching a monkey try to solve a crossword puzzle.
Tackle
I don’t believe for one moment that Deion is an enemy of LGBTQ people. We should not make this a big deal. He said that being gay could be a choice. He’s kinda correct, if he’s talking about the sexual act. My actions to be sexual are a choice. My orentation is not.
That being said, he seems to be very open, approachable and teachable. This is a good moment for us to reach out, and not be so
overcome with hate, bitterness, r@cism and childish name calling, in which unfortunately, too many gay men can be very good at.
He did not come at US that way, so there is no need for us to come at him in that way…
jason smeds
All sexual behavior is a choice. It doesn’t matter what your sexuality is or how you identify sexually – all sexual behavior is a choice.
However, the real issue is whether it is right to suppress completely sexual behavior that is private. Nobody has the right to do that. Sure, you can criticize it when it goes public but you have no right to say that it cannot occur in private.
jason smeds
In my experiences throughout life, I have known several black men sexually. One was a basketball player from Missouri. One thing I liked about him was his honesty. He honestly identified as straight but honestly thought that he could have sexual relations with men if women were not available or if he wasn’t successful in picking up women.
Indeed, he did. He was the best sex partner I ever had.
Who are we to judge him? He is entitled to have made an honest choice to be with a man, who happened to be me. The key word here is “honesty”. If you are behaving in an honest sexual way, then you should not be criticized for it.
He was a single black man playing the field, going to nightclubs and trying to pick up women. One night after the club, he saw me and found me attractive. He chose to submit to his sexual desires for an interaction with another human being, albeit a male. The rest is history.
Saint Law
@jason smeds: “In my experiences throughout life, I have known several black men sexually.”
Lol!
“One night after the club, he saw me and found me attractive. He chose to submit to his sexual desires for interaction with another human being, albeit a male. The rest is history.”
Absolute lol!
Saint Law
@jason smeds: In other words: “Reader, I gobbled him.”
musctop
@jason smeds: Seriously–is your post a joke? It’s intellectually bankrupt to call “sexual behavior” a choice. Sexuality AND behavior is instinctual, and NOT a choice. Whether you ACT on your instinct is the only choice you have. So you’re saying all straight men would sleep with men if they CHOSE to? You are bi–your claptrap about “choosing” to sleep with man is patent nonsense–but you go ahead and sing yourself to sleep if you need to. Your sexuality is part of your instinct–you like both men and women–and you can’t change that. Grow up.
jason smeds
musctop,
Sexual feelings are instinctual, I agree. However, sexual behavior can be faked, and is thus NOT instinctual in every case. In women, it is often faked. Women can fake it because they do not need to be aroused to engage in sexual behavior.
When it comes to behavior, all behavior that emanates from the brain can be stopped by the mind. The brain says “I want to do this” but the mind can intervene to say “I should not be doing this even though I want to do this”. How difficult is this to understand?
Why are you negating the effect of the mind? The mind is VERY important. It stops what the brain wants to do. Another word for it is morality.
Look, I’m not on the side of those who say that you should stop doing that which brings you joy and comfort in your life. That’s fine with me. If that means homosexual behavior, so be it. But that doesn’t mean that homosexual behavior is always OK. Forms of it can be distasteful, such as public displays or promiscuous behavior.
jwtraveler
This is America. We have the freedom to make all kinds of choices, including the choice to be ignorant. Sanders and millions of other Americans take liberal advantage of this.
Cagnazzo82
There are bi people who honestly are not aware that it’s simply a choice for them not to have sex with men in spite of an attraction perhaps being there.
Every time I see the argument of ‘choice’ vehemently argued (not saying this one’s vehement), but every time I see it brought up it raises a red flag for me that the person saying it might perhaps be bi and not know better.
I’ve had arguments online with people who absolutely loathe gays and think homosexuality is a choice only to reveal they do in fact have some attraction towards men.
Then the absurd argument makes perfect sense.
Shannon1981
He really should be careful what he says. Remember Chris Culliver?
Kieran
I blame all the idiotic Americans who regularly spend $100 or more for tickets to watch and cheer for a bunch of overgrown boys wearing extremely tight pants tackle and fondle each other.
Trippy
It’s just a theory that I’ve had for a decade or so, but I’m starting to think that men who shrug their shoulders and say “yeah, it’s probably a choice” are speaking from personal experience. Maybe Deion is bi and has found himself in a man-on-man encounter, or maybe he’s just been tempted and made the choice not to. In all honesty, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Consiously or subconsciously, he’s made that choice a number of times, so he assumes that the rest of us have made it as well.
But like I said… just a theory.
Saint Law
@jason smeds: And what about Jason’s meds? Paging Nurse – Jason gently needs his meds!
Bauhaus
Larry king and many others in the media, feed into the canard by the right wing and religious zealots, that sexual orientation may be a choice. It’s infuriating when the media gives the bigots the platform to further their absurd and damaging agenda.
Sanders is clearly a mental and emotional dwarf, not able to articulate the standard nonsense of the religious right.
Surely, he meant to say:
“I’m not saying I condemn it, but I don’t condone it.” That’s the, “hate the sin, love the sinner” thinking, but he got it all turned around.
He couldn’t even figure that out, the nitwit. Trying to cover bigotry in a blanket of love, is a tricky business, as the homophobes and bigots are coming to realize.
Funny, “choosing” to beat-up and knock-out girlfriends and wives, beat-up children, rape, murder, abuse drugs and alcohol, sell drugs, DUI’s, extortion, kidnapping and not paying child support, serial marriages, out of wedlock children? What about those choices?
Nah Larry, let’s talk about the only openly gay man, with the courage, dignity and honor, to challenge the status quo.
Stache99
@Kieran: Yeah, I know. I have a friend and he and his family don’t have allot of money to spend but they will to go see their team play. It’s considered a necessity.
Why not just stay home and watch it on the TV. I’ve gone one time and you end up watching a tv anyways to see what’s going on. I just don’t get it.
Aromaeus
It may very well be a choice, maybe not a conscious one, definitely wasn’t for me but even so that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I believe that a persons’s sexuality isn’t always the same. There are plenty of people who considered themselves one thing for x amount of time and later in life consider themselves something else, there is nothing wrong with that. However what is wrong is discriminating, harming, killing people because of it.
Merv
We get way too hung up on the choice question. Usually it happens when one person is talking about attraction and the other is talking about behavior. But, it doesn’t matter either way. Nobody has to justify his or her sex and romantic life to a stranger. They simply don’t get any say in it.
jwtraveler
@Kieran: Let’s not forget all the boys going gaga over those big beefy professional “wrestlers”.
Captain Obvious
I’m sure being on the offensive and tossing insults at Sanders will get your points across. Way to go, queens.