Thoughts on Washington Wizards Center Jason Collins coming out as the first currently playing openly gay athlete in a professional sport: A milestone yes but the real response by this point should be... "Big deal".
To paraphrase the late Ralph Klein on a different matter; a individual's sexuality is 'between them, their partner and God'. No one else's business. If I'm a Washington Wizards fan the only thing I'd care about with Jason Collins is if he's contributing to the team and the community on and off the court.
For adults who happen to be gay the real test of acceptance by the rest of society should be in my view a response of "so what". Much the same as I don't care about my proverbial straight neighbour on the right's sexuality, I really don't care about my proverbial gay neighbour on the left's sexuality either.
However:
I do care that they are nice people.
I do care if they treat my family and I with respect.
I do care how their day went and if they're doing well or not.
I do care that neither of them break the law and interfere with children or harm my home or family.
But I do care that no one is bothering, threatening or harassing them. Not specifically because of their sexuality, but because I don’t like bullies and I don’t like seeing people picked on.
What however I don't care about is with either of them is their sex life with their significant others... Bottom line is this: if I'm not included, then I don't need to know about it.
Yes Mr. Collin's it took courage to be the first but, if you had waited until retirement to come "out" or even never, no one should have thought the less of you - because it's none of their business anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment