Michael Sam - NFL's first openly gay prospect

[thrill]

Perhaps he wants a date.

Yeah. Maybe he wants to get laid. That's 99% of why most 20 year olds do most things.

[JackofDiamonds]

Perhaps he wants a date.

Yeah. Maybe he wants to get laid. That's 99% of why most 20 year olds do most things.

Trying get some of that gay road strange, putting it out there that he's down.

It's what the kids do.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I wish I could have used ESPN to get some strange back in the day.

[Socnorb11]

Perhaps he wants to show young kids who may be ashamed of who they are that they don't have to be. Perhaps he wants to be part of the slow destruction of stereotypes that cast gay men as effeminate and not potent athletes. Perhaps he just wants to be famous. Probably not, but it's possible though I don't see why anyone would rush to believe anyone would have wrong intentions for just being themselves.

My point is that I would prefer that a guy like him just "be himself". I mean, it doesn't NEED to be a secret....... but as I said, there's a lot of territory between keeping a secret and making a public announcement on ESPN. Come out privately........ eventually folks will find out. Kids aren't going to be able to relate to this. If the "acceptable" way of coming out is to announce it on ESPN, then every gay kid in America is screwed.

At some point, it just seems disingenuous. Yeah, I'm probably overly cynical.

[ghostrunner]

Perhaps he wants to show young kids who may be ashamed of who they are that they don't have to be. Perhaps he wants to be part of the slow destruction of stereotypes that cast gay men as effeminate and not potent athletes. Perhaps he just wants to be famous. Probably not, but it's possible though I don't see why anyone would rush to believe anyone would have wrong intentions for just being themselves.

My point is that I would prefer that a guy like him just "be himself". I mean, it doesn't NEED to be a secret....... but as I said, there's a lot of territory between keeping a secret and making a public announcement on ESPN. Come out privately........ eventually folks will find out. Kids aren't going to be able to relate to this. If the "acceptable" way of coming out is to announce it on ESPN, then every gay kid in America is screwed.

At some point, it just seems disingenuous. Yeah, I'm probably overly cynical.

I don't think you're in a position to speak for what's best for the gay community or what gay kids will respond to.

[Socnorb11]

Perhaps he wants to show young kids who may be ashamed of who they are that they don't have to be. Perhaps he wants to be part of the slow destruction of stereotypes that cast gay men as effeminate and not potent athletes. Perhaps he just wants to be famous. Probably not, but it's possible though I don't see why anyone would rush to believe anyone would have wrong intentions for just being themselves.

My point is that I would prefer that a guy like him just "be himself". I mean, it doesn't NEED to be a secret....... but as I said, there's a lot of territory between keeping a secret and making a public announcement on ESPN. Come out privately........ eventually folks will find out. Kids aren't going to be able to relate to this. If the "acceptable" way of coming out is to announce it on ESPN, then every gay kid in America is screwed.

At some point, it just seems disingenuous. Yeah, I'm probably overly cynical.

I don't think you're in a position to speak for what's best for the gay community or what gay kids will respond to.

With all due respect, that's a pretty unfair stance to take. None of us have ever been MLB baseball player, a mass murder, or president of the United States either, but we have healthy discussions about those issues every day.

I do have a gay niece whom I'm pretty tight with, so I'm not speaking from a position of total ignorance.

[ghostrunner]

Even with your gay niece you can't speak for them. You can speak about what you'd like to happen, but it doesn't seem relevant.

I'm not sure what's bad about coming out on espn. It's meant to attract attention, and I don't see how an outsider has any grasp of this players motivations. The whole notion of coming out presumes some sort of public declaration. You can go back and look at actors and others who have come out to see what their intentions were. In many cases it was partly to make other gay people feel comfortable about who they were and coming out themselves. This is still new territory for the athletic world, particularly the big 3 American sports.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Painting with broad brushes, and not specifically talking about any one person, I'd like to point out the hypocrisy of both sides.

On the one hand, you have the 'left' who is fully supportive of people coming out however they like and doing it on ESPN or before the draft or wherever/whenever.

Then on the 'right' you those who are fully supportive of people talking about the Bible and judgment whenever/wherever.

Yet, the 'right' thinks the people coming out should do it quietly and out of the news because it does no good to do it (on ESPN in this case) publicly. And the parallel, the 'left' shames the 'right' for publicly talking about their religion.

[Socnorb11]

Painting with broad brushes, and not specifically talking about any one person, I'd like to point out the hypocrisy of both sides.

On the one hand, you have the 'left' who is fully supportive of people coming out however they like and doing it on ESPN or before the draft or wherever/whenever.

Then on the 'right' you those who are fully supportive of people talking about the Bible and judgment whenever/wherever.

Yet, the 'right' thinks the people coming out should do it quietly and out of the news because it does no good to do it (on ESPN in this case) publicly. And the parallel, the 'left' shames the 'right' for publicly talking about their religion.

I don't consider myself left or right, and I'm aware that you're not referring to me, specifically.

Ghostrunner is right, in that I don't know this kid AT ALL. Maybe his intentions are commendable. I was just thinking out loud, and wasn't meaning to accuse him of anything. It seems that athletes are always looking for publicity (again, that doesn't necessarily mean that's the case here). As you said, the timing of them always seems somewhat coincidental, as well. I already admitted that I'm overly cynical about athletes and the media......... so there's that.

As far as the Bible, judgment, etc........... yeah, sometimes those folks are just looking for publicity, too. No doubt about it.


Mostly, I'm curious to see one of these guys (or women) live an openly gay life if they want to, without feeling the need to publicize it on national television. Frankly, that's how 99% of homosexuals are going to have to address the issue, because they don't have a forum like ESPN. I'd like to see us get to the point where folks don't think they need to make a big deal of it on ESPN. Maybe we're not there yet.

[Jocephus]

being the 1st openly gay in div 1 bball *is* somewhat of a big deal. these will get less and less "important" as they continue to happen, which is good, but whenever theres a "first", its going to get some level of attention.