I'm a little late to this story, but I'm just now getting around to sorting through the stack of magazines that have arrived the last two weeks. Among them were a couple of Sports Illustrateds, which I generally look forward to reading (it has some great writing). The cover of the May 6 issue featured an 'Exclusive...The Gay Athlete.' Inside, the reader was treated to a six-page essay on the journey of Jason Collins, the recently-out NBA player, followed by another five-page essay on 'what this means.' Collins received a bizarre amount of attention for his act. And a really weird phone call from the President, who called to thank him (what exactly he's thanking him for is unclear, and seems approximately as appropriate as his call to Sandra Fluke).
I find this story ridiculous not because some dude in the NBA is gay. Indeed, he may be one of the few among his brethren who will not father seven children by seven different women. Collins shouldn't be criticized, but he certainly shouldn't be celebrated. Isn't making a fuss about this an unusual response to a situation that is now supposed to be one of acceptance in our great effort to coexist? Have we learned nothing from the bumper sticker??
And let's just take a moment here and contrast the treatment of Collins with the treatment of Tim Tebow. His avowals of faith may not be for everyone, I get that. But Tebow is treated with nearly universal derision. Isn't his behavior at least as exemplary as Collins' behavior? Wouldn't a phone call from the President thanking him for the example he sets as a Christian be just as reasonable as a phone call to Jason Collins?
The president got his Nobel Prize for doing nothing are you really surprised that he called? We can no longer reward moral behavior. We have decided that everyone is good but those that are of the old system. You know the one the founding fathers relied on. I always laugh when I see them talking about what a great country we have and at the same time deride all the things that started it. We are in deep trouble and I am not sure that we deserve not to be. Sadly the America that I learned about in school I think is gone forever.
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