The Irony of "Gayness" in Sports. - Cheats - http://maxpages.com/codesector5/The_Irony_of_Gayness_in

For those of you who don't follow sports, former British basketball player, John Amaechi, came out of the proverbial gay closet close to a month ago and their was a media uproar and is now starting to die down. The book is called "Man in the Middle" and describes John life as a Gay basketball player for 5 years and how he kept quiet about is sexuality all these years.

Now Amaechi was not a well known player, so the only reason this got the media attention that it did was because he's the first NBA player to come out of the closet. But a few weeks ago, former 5 time NBA allstar, Tim Hardaway, voiced his negative biggoted opinion on the whole situation via radio. Here's what Hardaway said:

The short version? Tim Hardaway quotes "I hate Gay people".

My reaction to all of this? To be honest, I don't really care. Do I agree with what Tim Hardaway said? Absolutely not. I could care less if someone is gay or someone is straight. If I have a gay teammate on my sport's team then I could care less about their orientation. I'm just concerned if they help us win ball games.

Mike Greenburg, from Espn's "Mike and Mike in the Mourning" program said it best:

"You may have any number of reactions to this, and you are 1000% entitled to whatever reaction that is. You are 1000% entitled to say, “I fully agree with Tim Hardaway. I fully agree with him.” There are a lot of people in this country that feel this way. Now, look, I have my feelings. I don’t know that my feelings are any more significant than your feelings in this. I grew up in Greenwich Village in New York City, where it was completely routine for men and women to be walking down the street holding hands with each other. I witnessed that from the time I was born. So, to me, this has never been an issue, and it’s never been something that surprised me. It is a part of life I have been completely aware of and completely comfortable with from, literally, my earliest cognizant memory. But not everyone is like that. People have religious beliefs; people have any number of beliefs. I don’t like them: I don’t like… I fervently disagree with them. I fervently disagree with Tim Hardaway. But you know what? So what? Why does he care? I don’t really care what he thinks. That’s what makes this so confusing, is that I think, at one time - and these may sound like contradictory statements to make, but - I think it’s very important Tim Hardaway may speak his mind if he wants to, and I also couldn’t care less what he thinks. I did not wake up yesterday thinking, “boy, I wonder what Tim Hardaway thinks about gay people”, in much the same way that I didn’t wake up two weeks ago thinking, “boy, I wonder who John Amaechi was spending the night with last night”. I wasn’t wondering that any more the day before his book was published than I was wondering about it the day after. But it’s a subject, it’s a dialog, it’s up. It has been brought up."

He also went on to say:

"While I do welcome all opinion, and I believe firmly that if you’re going to open a dialog - not hold a monologue, not hold forth by yourself and allow only your views to be spoken - if you’re going to engage in a dialog, you have to be prepared and you have to welcome the opinions being expressed even if you disagree with them and, maybe in some cases, disgusted by them. So, I have no problem with Tim Hardaway saying what he said if that’s the way he feels, and I, thus, will formulate my feelings about him accordingly. I will further say that I am disgusted by what he said, and I make no secret of that. If you choose to judge me any way you wish as a result of my saying that, you are welcome to do so and I have no choice but to live with it."

I completely agree with Mike. Everyone has an opinion. No matter how much you disagree with someone's point of view or perspective, some people are still going to think that way. That's whether you agree with it or not. I disagree completely with Hardaway's comments and can't believe that some people are so narrow minded and biggoted, but so what? Everyone grows up differently. People have a vast amount of different opinions. Maybe if some of these people grew up in different household's they would have a different opinion. Maybe not. At the end of the day, that's all it is, an opinion. In my opinion, there is no such thing as right and wrong. That's because everyone has a different perspective on what is "right" and what is "wrong". It's all based on perspective. Tim Hardaway had every right to speak his mind whether you agree with him or not. Even thought I disagree strongly, it needed to be said. To show that not everyone thinks the same in this society.

So does it matter what my opinion is or any one's for that matter? That's for you to judge. I don't care about Tim Hardaway's stance on homosexuals or give a shit about John Amaechi's sexual partners. I really could care less. However, I realize that civil rights of all kinds are still an issue today. They shouldn't be an issue in my opinion, but they are. That's just are current state of reality.

This brings me to the second portion of this article. Most men are so gay conscious in the world of sports, yet when a teammate pats a teammate on the ass after a good play or effort then no one flips out. When I played sports, that never happened to me. However, I was younger and if a couch slapped me on the ass then I'd be filing for sexual harassment in a heartbeat.

If I still played organized sports today and a teammate or couch smacks me on the ass cordially after a nice play or after I made a mistake, why don't you just say "Good job man. Way to go" or "Go get em' next time son." Something lame like that. The worst scenario I could see that if your in a game, you make a huge mistake, and your manage smacks you on the ass WITHOUT saying a word. I mean, is he doing that to encourage you to try again next time or is he just seizing an opportunity to be an old pervert. Eh, hard to say either way. I can say its ironic as hell to have all this "Ass patting" going on in this "Manly", "blue collar" sports society. So funny.

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Page Updated Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:26am EDT