Adding yet another two cents into the Jason Collins well of public opinion is self-professed “small-town sports editor” Brian Nielsen of the Journal Gazette & Times Courier. Nielsen takes issue with the “hero’s welcome” Collins has received since coming out and instead of being hailed a pioneer, Nielsen implies that Collins should apologize.
Not only does Nielsen call being gay a “lifestyle choice,” but he also equates it with sin, noting that he would “hope to find mercy and forgiveness” for his moral shortcomings “not applause ” like Collins has for his:
Still we have people calling Collins a pioneer.
I never heard that, and rightfully so, when NBA player Shawn Kemp had fathered several illegitimate children with different women…More recently, Tiger Woods’ career tumbled and he lost a large amount of sponsorship dollars once his immoral lifestyle came to light.
At least Woods, sincere or not, made a public apology for his faults and expressed the desire to change.
Best that I can tell, Collins has not done that.
What should be a small-town sports column turns into another small-minded diatribe about the hell-baiting lack of Christian morals in society today. According to Nielsen, his article required the publisher’s approval since his “opinion is so against the current trend.” Not if that trend was started by Pat Robertson when he was a kid (some 800 years ago) or by any of the other conservative crazies who habitually crawl out from the moist stone they’ve been hiding under to shake their fists feebly at the march of time passing them by.
Sure, Jason Collins’ coming-out has been devoured, regurgitated, and then swallowed up again by the media, but it’s 2013. That it took nearly 70 years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball for a male athlete to come out on a major sports team (if it is only the Washington Wizards) may not be heroic, but it’s at least groundbreaking. But if anything, Nielsen reminds us that for someone in Collins’ position, coming out at a time when homosexuality is still held as some moral deficiency by people who can (presumably) read above a first grade level is kind of heroic after all.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
(h/t: Jim Romenesko)
Dakotahgeo
I wouldn’t give Nielson the benefit of even having a first grade education. Daycare dropout, yes! Anything above that? Never!
madtown52761
Heroes are not universally recognized. I’m sure many white people didn’t consider Martin Luther King, Jr. to be a hero, but the black community did. Christian conservatives may not consider Jason Collins to be a hero, and to them he isn’t; but to me and many in the LGBT community, he absolutely is. And no editorial or commentary can take that away from me.
Caliban
I’m really sick of these shit-weasels bringing their Sky Fairy bullshit into a place where it doesn’t belong. You want to write a religious article? Have at it, but write it for a religious magazine, blog, or your paper’s religion page. Want to write about sports? Then write about SPORTS, which has fuck-all to do with religion! Take your opinions based on the ramblings of superstitious Bronze Age nitwits and shove them straight up your ass!
Most obviously it’s idiotic to compare the indiscriminate procreation of one player and Tiger Woods’ infidelity to Jason Collins’ basic sexuality. IF we knew something about his sex life other than who he prefers as partners there might be a basis for this criticism, but we don’t!
tookietookie
I guess it’s good these bigots are being smoked out of their hiding holes, but srsly who cares…*yawn*…
Rock Star
I choose to be gay because I was born gay. I could choose to be celibate or I could choose to have sex with a woman. As Data on TNG said, “I am fully functional in every respect” But the mechanics of sex do not matter, it is the emotional fulfillment one gets from the act.