Gay NBA
Jason Collins proves that bravery takes many forms
By Sally Jenkins, WashPost, Published: April 29
The first openly gay man in a major American pro sports league is generously proportioned enough to ward off any foam-flecked bigots, at 7 feet and 255 pounds, but Jason Collins has a less-easy-to-identify kind of fortitude, too. Bravery takes a lot of forms, physical being just one, and a particularly unappreciated brand of it is social courage, which is the courage to to risk your place in the society you move in.
About 10 minutes after Collins came out in Sports Illustrated magazine on Monday, the chorus of approval he received was equal to a holiday parade. The White House saluted him, and former president Bill Clinton issued a statement of congratulations. Messages of support came from fellow players such as Steve Nash, who gave him “maximum respect” on Twitter. All of which bordered on over-congratulations and provoked Freedom Center fellow Ben Shapiro to the killjoy observation: “Collins is a hero? Our standard for heroism has dropped quite a bit since Normandy.”
But physical heroism and the moral kind don’t always go together — the Confederacy proved that. If you are tempted to ask how much guts it took for Collins to come out, you can answer that question by simply asking yourself another one:
If it was so easy, then why had no one done it before?
(More here.)
The first openly gay man in a major American pro sports league is generously proportioned enough to ward off any foam-flecked bigots, at 7 feet and 255 pounds, but Jason Collins has a less-easy-to-identify kind of fortitude, too. Bravery takes a lot of forms, physical being just one, and a particularly unappreciated brand of it is social courage, which is the courage to to risk your place in the society you move in.
About 10 minutes after Collins came out in Sports Illustrated magazine on Monday, the chorus of approval he received was equal to a holiday parade. The White House saluted him, and former president Bill Clinton issued a statement of congratulations. Messages of support came from fellow players such as Steve Nash, who gave him “maximum respect” on Twitter. All of which bordered on over-congratulations and provoked Freedom Center fellow Ben Shapiro to the killjoy observation: “Collins is a hero? Our standard for heroism has dropped quite a bit since Normandy.”
But physical heroism and the moral kind don’t always go together — the Confederacy proved that. If you are tempted to ask how much guts it took for Collins to come out, you can answer that question by simply asking yourself another one:
If it was so easy, then why had no one done it before?
(More here.)
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