Oh, get over it.
Today in things that drive certain people crazy: Openly gay sports-doer Michael Sam got picked in Saturday's NFL draft. He'll be going to the St. Louis Rams. And the worst possible thing, the thing that tipped the scales for some folks, allowing all of their anger and fury to spill out in a little puddle on the living room floor, was that after Michael Sam got picked the teevee showed him and his boyfriend sharing a kiss in celebration of the moment. For the sort of people who sit themselves down on Saturday to watch the NFL draft, at least some of them, at least the loudest ones, this was an abomination unto the sportball gods. Much to the surprise of
the people televising it:
“When I got home last night and saw the attention (it was receiving), it kind of threw me,” [producer Seth Markman] said. “We’re a young production crew and quite honestly it was just another moment in the years we’ve done this.”
“In the truck, we were only saying, ‘Wow, this is great emotion here.’ No one stepped up and said, ‘Oh, wow, do we really want to be showing this?’”
Only a handful of actual players or ex-players
had a problem with this.
Dolphins second-year player Don Jones tweeted, “OMG” and “horrible.” He later deleted those tweets, and yesterday was fined and will undergo sensitivity training.
He has
since apologized abjectly, so that must have been some damn fine training.
But the most outrage was among the non-sportplaying right, who are apparently exceedingly bitter about Tim Tebow being supposedly persecuted and discriminated against for loving Jesus while the openly gay Michael Sams of the sports world get all the perks, or something. You can read through a few here. (For example, I was not aware that Tim Tebow had been "publicly beheaded and fed to a lion," for example, but would like to go on record as saying I think whoever did that should definitely undergo some sensitivity training themselves. That ain't right. Lions need to be on a strictly regulated diet, and the shoulder pads would give them unbelievable gas.) It doesn't look like the antipathy towards Sam will be going away anytime soon.
You know, we really need to get over this constant judgment of other people. If Michael Sam wants to choose the destructive lifestyle of being a professional football player, we should try to be more supportive.