Former NBA player Jason Collins, who became the first openly gay athlete to play in one of the four major North American sports leagues, spoke out this week about the recent wave of NHL players and teams opting out of Pride Night, saying that “religion should not be a cause for division.”
Some Russian NHL players have opted out over fear of reprisals in their home country, but the main reason given for opting out has been religious beliefs.
You’ve got to offer some excuse and that’s the one that people seem most willing to accept. It may be sincere in most or all cases, I don’t know. I know that there are some people who believe in a God who frowns on any sort of non-heterosexual activities.
Religion is definitely a cause of division in the world, there’s no disagreeing with that. But in this case, I’m going to say that the cause of division is Collins himself.
He seems to be saying that celebrating gayness is more important than anyone’s religious beliefs. I’m not gay and I’m not religious and I’m not easily offended, but that is an offensive statement.
Players should be able to opt out of Pride Night for any reason or no reason. Mine would be “I don’t like people telling me what to wear.”
Why would the fact that Jason Collins likes to suck dicks merit a celebration? Not that’s there anything wrong with sucking dicks. Women do it, men do it. But that’s what Pride Night is, right? A celebration of certain sexual preferences and practices.
There are also lots of other sexual preferences and practices. Must all of them be celebrated at NHL games?
Why would you think that being gay or trans means that everyone is required to accept you and love you? You think everyone loves me? Surprisingly, they don’t.
The United States actually used to have laws against homosexual sex and the rallying cry was that the government should “stay out of the bedroom.”
Now we’ve gone completely the other way, where we’re required to look in the bedroom and to applaud what we see.