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Jason Collins, “We’ve got your back”

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Echoing the words of First Lady Michelle Obama:

President Obama called NBA player Jason Collins Monday to offer his support after Collins announced he’s gay, becoming the first openly gay major league professional athlete, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett has learned.

The president offered congratulations and support on Collins’ courage and willingness to be the first in the four dominant pro sports to make this announcement.

First lady Michelle Obama also showed her support for Collins on Twitter Monday.

“So proud of you, Jason Collins! This is a huge step forward for our country. We’ve got your back!” she tweeted, signing it “-mo,” which indicates she – not an aide – sent the message.

We’ve got your back Jason, and hope that your openness will give other men and women the courage to come out as well, when they feel comfortable to do it.

Growing up in a basketball crazy household and community in New York City, I’ve rubbed elbows with high school, college and NBA players. My husband played college ball on scholarship and both of us hung out at Rucker Park.

I’ve known a few gay and bi-sexual players. They may not be “out” in public – yet, but that is their choice.  Though he has broken an important barrier for the NBA, Jason Collins isn’t the first player to support LBGT equality, and he won’t be the last. His decision to come out as an active NBA player took a lot of grit.

Let us also take a moment to acknowledge other LBGT sports figures who have done so in the past.  

It’s important to also acknowledge those sports folks who stand in solidarity with the LBBT community.

Hat tip to earicicle who posted this comment and video:


And what do you know about an NBA locker room?

Do you know that Kenneth Faried, second-year power forward for the Denver Nuggets, made this powerful PSA advocating for civil unions in Colorado? Sitting alongside him are his two moms, who live CU’d in Kenneth’s home state of NJ, where they helped raise him together. BTW, Faried’s basketball nickname is  ‘The Manimal’ for his energetic, aggressive style of play.

Speaking of the basketball community, I liked what Sir Charles had to say:

“Anybody who thinks they never played with a gay player is an idiot…

I’ve played with several gay players, it’s their own business…”

In another discussion Barkley expanded his remarks, stating “us being black, we’ve got to always be for tolerance”, noting that everyone has someone in their family who is gay.

What was also of interest to me, in the Sports Illustrated story, which broke the news, is Collins’ discussion of his faith (he is a devout Christian).  

I’m from a close-knit family. My parents instilled Christian values in me. They taught Sunday school, and I enjoyed lending a hand. I take the teachings of Jesus seriously, particularly the ones that touch on tolerance and understanding.

Every black church I’ve ever attended has had gay members, some quite prominent in church functioning, whether folks want to fess up about it or not.  

The countering “view” has now been heard from sportscaster Chris Broussard who is spouting his brand of bible talk, “I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the bible would characterize them as a Christian.”

Whatever.  

Far more important was the tweet from Dwane Wade (also a devout Christian).

“Jason Collins showed a lot of courage today and I respect him for taking a stand and choosing to live in his truth. #nbafamily.” Within minutes thousands had re-tweeted Wade’s positive message.

Collins has discussed what sparked him to come out publicly:

His college roommate was Robert Kennedy’s grandson Joseph III.

Enrolled in Stanford in 1998 where his roommate was Joseph P. Kennedy III, the son of former congressman Joe Kennedy II and the grandson of former Senator Robert Kennedy.

After graduation, Kennedy attended Harvard Law School, became a local prosecutor and in 2012 got elected to Congress from Massachusetts’ 4th congressional district, which runs from the Boston suburbs of Newton down to the New Bedford coast.

In fact, it was a conversation that Collins and Kennedy had about the congressman marching in a gay pride parade that prompted Collins to reveal his homosexuality.

He wrote in Sports Illustrated, “I’m seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator.

Kennedy tweeted Monday, “I’ve always been proud to call (Collins) a friend, and I’m even prouder to stand with him today.”

What Collins had to say in SI about the stress he was under, and the importance of people, straight and gay speaking up is key:

The strain of hiding my sexuality became almost unbearable in March, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against same-sex marriage. Less then three miles from my apartment, nine jurists argued about my happiness and my future. Here was my chance to be heard, and I couldn’t say a thing. I didn’t want to answer questions and draw attention to myself. Not while I was still playing.

I’m glad I’m coming out in 2013 rather than 2003. The climate has shifted; public opinion has shifted. And yet we still have so much farther to go. Everyone is terrified of the unknown, but most of us don’t want to return to a time when minorities were openly discriminated against. I’m impressed with the straight pro athletes who have spoken up so far — Chris Kluwe, Brendon Ayanbadejo. The more people who speak out, the better, gay or straight. It starts with President Obama’s mentioning the 1969 Stonewall riots, which launched the gay rights movement, during his second inaugural address. And it extends to the grade-school teacher who encourages her students to accept the things that make us different.

Cross posted from Black Kos


Categories: General.

/ 15 Comments

15 comments

  2. JanF

    First, since when is there a Christian litmus test for professional basketball players? I remember a player named Lou Alcinder who played for the Milwaukee Bucks finishing his career as Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Not very Christian of him.

    And then the nonsensical “God hates adulterers” and being irate because gay players are having sexual relations out of wedlock. Pardon me, Mr. Arbiter of Sports Morality … there are only a handful of states where a gay player could be married.

    Thanks for weighing in on this. I am not often on the same side of issues as Charles Barkley but he has this one right.

  3. anotherdemocrat

    I hope that people realize they’ve already been cheering for gay people, and that more players feel free to come out.

  5. slksfca

    By all accounts (I don’t know basketball) he’s a very tough player. And he’s also tremendously articulate. I am in considerable awe at his grace and courage.

  7. JanF

    Former Packer Leroy Butler (always one of my favorites) often did talks at local churches to kids about bullying.

    When he Tweeted his congratulations and support to Jason Collins, a church canceled his talk:

    “This is what bothers me the most,” Butler said. “They said, ‘If you ask for forgiveness and remove the tweet and you say something to the effect that you don’t congratulate (Collins) then we’ll let you do the engagement and get the speaker’s fee’, and I said ‘I’m not doing that.’

    “Every gay and lesbian person will say ‘You know, LeRoy doesn’t speak up for the weak or the silenced. He doesn’t stand for anything as a man and he did it for money.’ Why would you ask me to reduce my integrity like that?”

    The Tweets describing the “issue”:

    Butler said the church called to thanked him … for not revealing their name!!

    This is the story I read in my paper this morning:

    “I speak about not bullying people and then I do a football camp,” Butler said in a telephone interview with Press-Gazette Media.

    But Butler said a church representative called him Tuesday night inquiring about the tweet, which said: “Congrats to Jason Collins.”

    “They asked, ‘Did you go on Twitter and congratulate some gay guy?'” Butler said. “I said, yeah, a basketball player who came out.

    “They said, ‘Well, we can’t have you talk about that.’ Not that it was what I was going to talk about anyway, but I said, ‘Why not?’ And they said I had to talk to the pastor, and that’s when it got heated. I don’t know the exact Bible verse, but he was telling me that God doesn’t like homosexuals.”

    p.s. Leroy Butler’s Twitter name, leap36, refers to the fact that he invented the Lambeau leap and his jersey number is 36.

  8. kishik

    but last night, (and it’s not something I’d normally watch!) I made a point of seeing the Oprah interview with Jason Collins.  I’m glad I watched it. I honestly believe he didn’t realize what would follow, and was prepared more for the worst, so all the support really did come as a gift.

    He was gracious and humble accepting these gifts.

    What a wonderful son and brother he is!  He is very loved and supported by his family – you can tell.  He also said he purposefully waited for the season to end, so it would have no impact with distractions for his team.

  9. Chris Blask

    It is stunning that we have allowed ourselves to be homophobic as a culture for so much longer than we allowed ourselves to be racist.

    In the past decade I tolerated far too often the “gay humor” of friends. Some of it most certainly masked actual homophobia at least, and hatred at worst. Far too rarely did I push back against it.

    When my teenaged nephew lived with us for a year I tried to get him to understand that saying everything bad was “gay” was wrong. I accept his statements that he had no explicit prejudice or negative feeling towards homosexuals. But nevertheless the use of the word as pejorative simply does cause direct harm and also perpetuates the prejudice.

    It hasn’t been much more than a decade since I myself stopped using the F-Word. I had always saved it for straight men (particularly machos I knew it would offend) when I particularly wanted to insult them, but of course I was feeding the same machine of bigotry nonetheless.

    There are certainly many gay men among the sporting community. It would come as no surprise if the ratio were higher than in the general population. There is also no place where the acceptance of anti-gay bigotry is so high in our society. Real, hateful, hurtful, brutally egged-on bigotry – the kind that leads to violence against other and against oneself.

    It is long past the time when we all place bigotry in its proper position. When we finally stop allowing ourselves the luxury of keeping some of our pet prejudices alive while patting our backs for following popular fads to forsake others.

    It doesn’t matter why you hate. Hate itself is the sin.

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