When will the first gay active pro athlete come out?

Acceptance of gay males in sports won't happen because one star athlete comes out. It's happening, now, because of generational changes in views toward homosexuality. There are probably athletes that are out to their teams, but not to the wider world -- at the athlete's request. And not because the athlete fears an angry backlash. That athletes may just not want to serve as an unofficial gay athlete spokesman, and be the first one to deal with the hype and upset.

In an indication how rapidly things are changing, the latest Gallup poll has support of gay marriage at 53% for, when last year it was 53% against. Democrats and independents are rapidly changing their view for gay marriage. Republicans' views are unchanged -- they're overwhelmingly against it. Point being, the gay star athlete who comes out will have to handle all the pressure that comes with getting a lot of positive attention, as well as a lot of negative stuff.

By the way, given how Noah and the Bulls are playing, he'll have plenty of time during the finals to watch those Grant Hill-Jared Dudley ads about how using gay as an epithet is stupid and wrong.

 

Anybody else think the NBA's Jaye Davidson is engaging in a little denial there?

 

I'm almost inclined to give Noah a pass because, based on his celebration with his mom after the NCAA championship, we can assume he has some very mixed-up ideas about sexuality.

On a serious note: If we're reading polls of the nation at large and putting that into the context of a male sports locker room, we have to take into account that the black community (and, regarding baseball, the Latin community) is way behind whites in accepting gay marriage/gay rights. By racial composition alone, this suggests it's going to remain a lot tougher than the rest of society. Show me another workplace where people feel free to throw around the kind of word Kobe and Noah used, because the thought applies here that what you saw on camera is one-hundredth of what's said on an everyday basis.

 

All good points.

The problem is, as welcoming as the public may be, it only takes one idiot screaming something at a game to make everyone look like no evolution has taken place whatsoever on this subject.

Although if there are players who are openly gay playing, maybe the idiot who is calling them "cocksuckers" can be arrested for hate speech.

 

I've worked in some newsrooms where the language used was as bad as anything you hear on the court.

 

Only if the game was in Toronto.

 

Great points here.

 

I remember reading something that said that the biggest reason Prop 8 failed in California was because of the minority vote.

That boggles the mind...

 

According to exit polling, 70 percent of black voters were for Prop 8 (voting for Prop 8 was voting against gay marriage because of the wording on the actual prop). In a 52-48 election, that was basically the difference. Some pollsters think Prop 8 would have failed -- and gay marriage would have remained legal -- if Obama hadn't drawn so many new black voters.

 

Freeman did such in his book "Bloody Sundays," using a pseudonym.

 

I'll never understand it, but it doesn't surprise me. One of the reasons I find bigotry so disturbing is my own experiences with it when I was young, not just from peers, but from adults.

I still remember getting into a discussion about bigotry with a woman who was African American in college. She told me that being Jewish doesn't count as being a minority because, "People can't tell what you are by looking at you."

I was stunned. Basically, she seemed to resent the fact that I could hide being a minority if I wanted to, as if that was an acceptable option. There are some members of all minority groups, including my own, who insist that they have it worse than anyone and don't you dare argue that point with them. I think that is one of the reasons for the divisions among minorities in this country.

Another is plain ignorance. Unfortunately, members of minority groups can be bigots. You would think somebody who has faced bigotry would know better, but that just isn't always the case.

 

To get an idea of how things have changed, when I was a kid (I'm 41), if you said fuck, it was the worst word imaginable, but if you used a racial, ethnic or gay slur, it was not so much of a big thing. Now, it's the opposite: you can say fuck all you want to whomever you want, but using a racial, ethnic or gay slur, you're a pariah. I don't find this a bad thing.