The lesson of the Jason Collins story, according to Religious Right activists, is that true courage is found in attacking gay people… since not enough people are doing it these days.
In his daily radio bulletin, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council contended that Chris Broussard, the sportscaster who claimed that Jason Collins was rebelling against God, showed “real courage,” unlike Collins…because no one criticized him for being gay, except for Broussard (and many, many, many others).
Jason Collins doesn't play for the Trailblazers, but he's being treated like one. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. When the NBA's Jayson Collins announced he was gay, people were literally jumping through hoops to praise him. But if you want to know what real courage looks like, try standing up for truth. NBA reporter Chris Broussard did--and he found out that coming out as Christian might be harder than admitting you're gay. "There [are] a lot Christians in the NBA and just because they disagree with that lifestyle, they don't want to be called bigoted and intolerant ...[T]rue tolerance and acceptance is being able to [act like] mature adults and not call each other names." Personally, Chris said, he didn't know how Collins could reconcile homosexuality with his faith. "If you're openly living in unrepentant sin... not just homosexuality, [but] adultery... premarital sex... whatever... that's walking in open rebellion to God..." ESPN apologized for his comments, but they should have been sorrier for fouling up the debate.
The American Civil Right Union’s Robert Knight made the same case in the Washington Times, arguing that the really brave people are those who attacked Jason Collins since not enough people attacked him.
“A lynch mob is chasing ESPN the Magazine writer Chris Broussard,” Knight writes, “Like openly devout quarterback Tim Tebow, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Broussard are the brave ones — rocks in a flood tide of insanity and cowardice.”
When pro basketball player Jason Collins “came out,” the media went nuts. He was toasted from coast to coast, received congratulatory phone calls from President Obama and Bill Clinton, and made magazine covers.
On May 1, Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise joined the parade by bashing “Old Testament moral certainty” and denouncing anyone who “trumpeted their bigotry under the guise of ‘religious beliefs.’” There’s no hint in Mr. Wise’s vitriolic column that someone could possibly hold sincere, faith-based moral beliefs. Bullies like the oxymoronically named Mr. Wise are types that the Age of Tolerance is spawning by the truckload.
This brings us to our final word, which is “brave.” Mr. Collins was widely hailed as brave, but it’s the few people who dared question the wisdom of his volitional behavior who are brave.
A lynch mob is chasing ESPN the Magazine writer Chris Broussard because he reiterated classic Christian doctrine to an interviewer: “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be — not just homosexuality, [but] adultery, fornication, premarital sex, whatever it may be — I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian, because I don’t think the Bible would characterize him as a Christian.”
Another brave soul is Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, who on April 30 tweeted: “In a land of freedom, we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.” Like openly devout quarterback Tim Tebow, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Broussard are the brave ones — rocks in a flood tide of insanity and cowardice.
As we watch word after word twisted into doublespeak by corrupt elites, it brings to mind George Orwell’s observation: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
