Gay Nascar Driver,pleasen stand up.
Gay NASCAR driver, please stand up
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Turn on the TV. Switch on ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL Sunday Ticket or any of those 24-hour satellite channels or sports webcasts that broadcast live games from across the country in one nonstop testosterone-happy grunt.
Look, right there. Did you see him? The one who just slam dunked? The one who tackled that receiver? The one who smashed that double to left center? That guy with the huge smile, hint of flair and the crazy thing with the hair? Guess what? Yep. Totally gay.
Bet on it, darling. There are gay men, right now, playing basketball in the NBA. There are gay men playing football, right now, in the NFL. Ditto Major League Baseball. Hockey, even. There are gay men (and women) scattered all over most every college team everywhere. I mean, obviously.
And I'm going to lay it all on the line and bet you a dollar -- all right, make it $10, hell, make it $100 and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a mani-pedi in the Castro -- that there is, right this minute, a gay NASCAR driver. Oh my God! Heathen! Blaspheme! Shut up!
Whatever. He might not know it yet, he might be utterly horrified by every little twitch and gurgle in his heart and loins as he whips around the track, fervently wishing he'd been born anywhere but Kentucky or Kansas or Tennessee, but gay he is. Ain't it grand?
Here is the amazing thing: Word is getting out -- slowly, strangely, awkwardly, but it's getting out nonetheless -- that gaydom abounds in pro sports.
All right, maybe not "abounds," maybe more like struggles and trembles and panics just a little, every single day, in fear of losing a major endorsement deal and/or getting eaten by scary fundamentalist Jesus, but still. It's certainly common enough that most players already know, and few of them really give a damn except the Bible thumpers and a handful of homophobic youngbloods, and even they shut the hell up when the team makes the playoffs and everyone gets a $10 million bonus and suddenly God can pipe down 'cuz daddy needs a new Mercedes SL550 and a dozen celebratory hookers.
"Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin' idiot. I would even say the same thing in college. Every college player, every pro player in any sport has probably played with a gay person."
That would be the NBA's own happily blasphemin' commentator and former superstar Sir Charles Barkley, who just doesn't give a s--t what people think, who has never been one to shy away from saying awesome things at the most unexpected times, who is fond of rolling his eyes and nailing the point home.
Of course, no players have actually admitted to their same-sex predilections yet. None have dared muster the nerve. But it all seems to point to one inevitable grand event: A gay pro player, somewhere, someone at the top of his game, perhaps even a superstar, will prove a true hero and break every childishly macho stereotype we have left (excepting maybe hip-hop and country music), and come on out. Hopefully soon.
And then, maybe another. And another. Maybe they'll start a movement. Maybe they'll become instant cultural flashpoints, icons for a new generation of gay athletes (and fans), the collective Jackie Robinsons of the time, stirring up all sorts of controversial melodrama and white-hot discussion to the point where no one knows how to parse it all and everyone just throws up their hands and gets on with life because, well, the games keep being played as usual, nothing undue happens, and Jesus doesn't actually give a damn, so who the hell cares, anyway?
Not your beloved SF Giants, at least. Here's the World Series champs, the first pro team of any sport to come out, as it were, and agree to record some inspirational video for Dan Savage's stunningly successful It's Gets Better Project, all at the behest of a very dedicated gay fan. Hey, it's a step. A rather huge one.
It makes perfect sense, of course, that SF's team is the first to openly trash talk homophobia, given the hometown vibe, given all the local gay and lesbian fans, given that not supporting gay rights would be akin to the Raiders not confessing their big gay crush on Skeletor.
You might say, as go pro sports and (just recently) the U.S. military, so goes the culture. You might say, the sooner homosexuality becomes even slightly more acknowledged and normalized among our millionaire athletes and manly young soldiers alike, the sooner the panicky midwest and the Mormons and hardcore homophobes across our fair nation will realize that gaydom might not be such an apocalyptic abomination after all.
You might say that, but you'd be wrong. The sad news is, America's dedicated clumps of anti-gay crusaders aren't budging out of their fearholes anytime soon. What will change is this: They just won't matter so much anymore. The wail of the homophobes will be drowned out by the new generation of cheering young fans who openly support gay players, gay soldiers and gay marriage (witness the latest and greatest Gallup poll) because, well, it's just not a big deal anymore.
Sure, it might take awhile. I myself wrote a column nearly six years ago, just after the WNBA's then-MVP Sheryl Swoopes surprised no one by coming out as a lesbian, which asked this same question ("Where are the gay pro athletes?"). I assumed it wouldn't be much longer. I assumed it was inevitable, probably within a couple few years.
I assumed wrong. So far, it's been merely a trickle. A long retired player here, an obscure B-list player there, one euro soccer player way over there, the president and CEO of the Phoenix Suns (Rick Welts) just over here, but of course he gets a pass because he's older, white and rich, and everyone knows most of them are secretly gay.
But I'm betting it will happen relatively soon. And then will come the day -- can you imagine? -- when a pro athlete declares his love for a gay U.S. soldier and marries him on the steps of a Kentucky city hall, and everyone just smiles and says, "right on," and then gets on with their lives.
That will be the day, the day Jesus will be smiling. The day the last of the crusty old homophobes is defeated by love. The day the world will tilt just a little more toward progress and enlightenment and a big, divine shrug.
Do you seriously doubt it? Do you still desperately cling to old anti-gay ideas of strict gender and "perfect" nuclear families and malformed biblical nonsense, at the expense of your fluid and desperate heart? I'm sorry to hear it. Allow me to paraphrase the wise and noble guru: You might be a stone freakin' idiot.
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Turn on the TV. Switch on ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL Sunday Ticket or any of those 24-hour satellite channels or sports webcasts that broadcast live games from across the country in one nonstop testosterone-happy grunt.
Look, right there. Did you see him? The one who just slam dunked? The one who tackled that receiver? The one who smashed that double to left center? That guy with the huge smile, hint of flair and the crazy thing with the hair? Guess what? Yep. Totally gay.
Bet on it, darling. There are gay men, right now, playing basketball in the NBA. There are gay men playing football, right now, in the NFL. Ditto Major League Baseball. Hockey, even. There are gay men (and women) scattered all over most every college team everywhere. I mean, obviously.
And I'm going to lay it all on the line and bet you a dollar -- all right, make it $10, hell, make it $100 and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a mani-pedi in the Castro -- that there is, right this minute, a gay NASCAR driver. Oh my God! Heathen! Blaspheme! Shut up!
Whatever. He might not know it yet, he might be utterly horrified by every little twitch and gurgle in his heart and loins as he whips around the track, fervently wishing he'd been born anywhere but Kentucky or Kansas or Tennessee, but gay he is. Ain't it grand?
Here is the amazing thing: Word is getting out -- slowly, strangely, awkwardly, but it's getting out nonetheless -- that gaydom abounds in pro sports.
All right, maybe not "abounds," maybe more like struggles and trembles and panics just a little, every single day, in fear of losing a major endorsement deal and/or getting eaten by scary fundamentalist Jesus, but still. It's certainly common enough that most players already know, and few of them really give a damn except the Bible thumpers and a handful of homophobic youngbloods, and even they shut the hell up when the team makes the playoffs and everyone gets a $10 million bonus and suddenly God can pipe down 'cuz daddy needs a new Mercedes SL550 and a dozen celebratory hookers.
"Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin' idiot. I would even say the same thing in college. Every college player, every pro player in any sport has probably played with a gay person."
That would be the NBA's own happily blasphemin' commentator and former superstar Sir Charles Barkley, who just doesn't give a s--t what people think, who has never been one to shy away from saying awesome things at the most unexpected times, who is fond of rolling his eyes and nailing the point home.
Of course, no players have actually admitted to their same-sex predilections yet. None have dared muster the nerve. But it all seems to point to one inevitable grand event: A gay pro player, somewhere, someone at the top of his game, perhaps even a superstar, will prove a true hero and break every childishly macho stereotype we have left (excepting maybe hip-hop and country music), and come on out. Hopefully soon.
And then, maybe another. And another. Maybe they'll start a movement. Maybe they'll become instant cultural flashpoints, icons for a new generation of gay athletes (and fans), the collective Jackie Robinsons of the time, stirring up all sorts of controversial melodrama and white-hot discussion to the point where no one knows how to parse it all and everyone just throws up their hands and gets on with life because, well, the games keep being played as usual, nothing undue happens, and Jesus doesn't actually give a damn, so who the hell cares, anyway?
Not your beloved SF Giants, at least. Here's the World Series champs, the first pro team of any sport to come out, as it were, and agree to record some inspirational video for Dan Savage's stunningly successful It's Gets Better Project, all at the behest of a very dedicated gay fan. Hey, it's a step. A rather huge one.
It makes perfect sense, of course, that SF's team is the first to openly trash talk homophobia, given the hometown vibe, given all the local gay and lesbian fans, given that not supporting gay rights would be akin to the Raiders not confessing their big gay crush on Skeletor.
You might say, as go pro sports and (just recently) the U.S. military, so goes the culture. You might say, the sooner homosexuality becomes even slightly more acknowledged and normalized among our millionaire athletes and manly young soldiers alike, the sooner the panicky midwest and the Mormons and hardcore homophobes across our fair nation will realize that gaydom might not be such an apocalyptic abomination after all.
You might say that, but you'd be wrong. The sad news is, America's dedicated clumps of anti-gay crusaders aren't budging out of their fearholes anytime soon. What will change is this: They just won't matter so much anymore. The wail of the homophobes will be drowned out by the new generation of cheering young fans who openly support gay players, gay soldiers and gay marriage (witness the latest and greatest Gallup poll) because, well, it's just not a big deal anymore.
Sure, it might take awhile. I myself wrote a column nearly six years ago, just after the WNBA's then-MVP Sheryl Swoopes surprised no one by coming out as a lesbian, which asked this same question ("Where are the gay pro athletes?"). I assumed it wouldn't be much longer. I assumed it was inevitable, probably within a couple few years.
I assumed wrong. So far, it's been merely a trickle. A long retired player here, an obscure B-list player there, one euro soccer player way over there, the president and CEO of the Phoenix Suns (Rick Welts) just over here, but of course he gets a pass because he's older, white and rich, and everyone knows most of them are secretly gay.
But I'm betting it will happen relatively soon. And then will come the day -- can you imagine? -- when a pro athlete declares his love for a gay U.S. soldier and marries him on the steps of a Kentucky city hall, and everyone just smiles and says, "right on," and then gets on with their lives.
That will be the day, the day Jesus will be smiling. The day the last of the crusty old homophobes is defeated by love. The day the world will tilt just a little more toward progress and enlightenment and a big, divine shrug.
Do you seriously doubt it? Do you still desperately cling to old anti-gay ideas of strict gender and "perfect" nuclear families and malformed biblical nonsense, at the expense of your fluid and desperate heart? I'm sorry to hear it. Allow me to paraphrase the wise and noble guru: You might be a stone freakin' idiot.