Dumb joke, good point. Guy is a football player.
Last night they were talking about Jason Collins re-entry into the league. First openly gay in any of the four major sports yada yada yada. One guy who covered the game was surprised that in L.A. there was just lukewarm applause. Look, everyone supports him, but last night's line a typical Collins stat line: 11 minutes, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, no points. It's deserving of lukewarm applause. Anything more is patronizing, no?
Your point is the applause should be tempered because he's not a top player? That's not why they were applauding.
It's not patronizing at all to acknowledge his courage with applause.
OK, fine.
But let's be real about how much courage it took. It's not Jackie when a good sized portion of the society, his opponents and even teammates are opposed to him being out there. We're at a point in time where, yes, of course it's a story, and IMO it's very quickly - a few years - it will be a non-story in any sport.
As someone who is openly supportive of LBGT causes at work, in my community, et al - I'm looking forward to that normalcy.
I agree that things for the LGBT community are not as bad in 2014 as they were for African Americans in 1947 but there is still strong opposition to anything LGBT in large segments of America, including (especially?) in sports locker rooms. One big difference for Sam is that public figures are far less likely to make their opposition publicly known because of the backlash but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it won't be difficult for Sam. My goodness a nutjob lobbyist actually suggested floating a bill to bar the NFL from having openly gay players.
There are plenty of people out there who hate him for being gay (
Link from Huffington post contains foul language) and I would not be at all surprised if he has received death threats. People are being more careful about it but it, without question, exists.
Again I am not saying it is as bad as it was for Jackie and I agree that in a few years it probably will be a non-issue in sports but don't kid yourself that it hasn't been difficult for him and that it won't continue to be so.