1. I cannot wait for the day in which a high profile, team sports athlete comes out of the closet during his playing days. Especially if that athlete is a badass football player based in a southern market. I really hope it forces the ignorant and hateful segment of our population to address their issues with homosexuality.
I really thought the first openly gay football player would be Ricky Williams. And I was rooting for that. All those people who cheered him on at Texas would know, no matter what they would say now, that they cheered for a gay man. That would be awesome.
Instead, Ricky just came out as a drugged-out flake.
2. It killed me that Todd Jones, a product of my hometown of Marietta GA, was one of the athletes leading the anti-gay charge a few years back. I generally found him to be a pretty funny guy, and I always feel compelled to root for the hometown guys. But then he had to use his Sporting News article as a pulpit for his own spiteful views.
His anti-gay writing was somewhat ironic, though, given that he bears more than a passing resemblence to the biker guy from the Village People.
3. I think that Scott Thompson is an underrated force in people's acceptance of homosexuality. People talk of the "Will and Grace" effect on middle America, but I believe Scott Thompson was laying that groundwork years and years ago.
As I hinted before, middle schools in the south are fertile grounds for gay bashing. We thought nothing of calling people "faggots," or playing "smear the queer."
And yet, when they started to show "Kids in the Hall" reruns on Comedy Central, my friends and I watched. And thought that Scott Thompson was awesome. And had no misconceptions whatsoever that he was gay.
Prior to becoming a big "Kids" fan, I probably would have told you (while drinking Hi-C and after doodling football logos in the margins of my notebooks) that I would be less of a fan of a rock band if they came out as gay, or that I would be less of a fan of an athlete if I learned he was gay.
But I watched "Kids in the Hall," and I thought Scott Thompson was hilarious.
To make my belabored point, liking Scott Thompson made me realize it was okay to like gay people. And this, while this seems like it should be an unremarkable realization, when you are in seventh grade, it is a very critical step in your development towards becoming a tolerant and reasonable human being.
4. To add a postscript to post #3, "Kids in the Hall" is better than "Saturday Night Live" (including the Aykroyd-Belushi years). I am sorry, but it just is.
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