Jason Collins

[britbox]

Good post Kieran. Very interesting.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Sure Cali....

Right, he was in an 8-year relationship with a woman and not once was he sexually attracted to her.

And you consider yourself rational? LOL....

Sure Cali...Of course, you are right. Because there aren't thousands of gay man who are or were married for years, even have kids, but decide to come out eventually.

These man , for mostly social reasons, try to convince themselves that they are "normal", that how they feel about themselves will eventually pass...Sometimes they die in the closet, other times they come out because they cannot deny who they are anymore. It is not about living with someone for years and not being attracted to them...It is about playing a role, while feeling differently inside. I am not familiar with that feeling, and I am pretty sure you are not either, but the difference between you and I is that I can empathise, whereas you cannot. In my opinion , that makes me a bit more "rational " than you.

As far as history is concerned, times change. We are not throwing virgins down a volcano anymore because gods tell us to do so. It is bad for morale, apparently...So, you get on with the times, accept new realities. And since almost %50 of what you call "natural" marriages are ending in divorce, nature seems to have aimed rather low, no?

And talking about "natural" and "human", a male, who is genetically programmed to spread his seed every chance he gets, does not bode well for "traditional" marriage, does it? If we are talking in biological terms, monogamy is a load of crap. Since you are into history, biology, anthropology and all sort of other things, are you supporting polygamy Cali? Because as far as the male is concerned, that is the natural way, no?

At the end of the day, this thread is about a guy, who feels a certain way about himself in an environment where that certain way is not appreciated, having the courage to do something no one in his shoes has done before , and that is a fact.
You might not like it, but it is what it is.

 

[calitennis127]

One thing that has gone completely unmentioned (largely because of basketball ignorance) is just how worthless and terrible a player Jason Collins was for years. He actually fits the traditional stereotypes perfectly, and I wasn't at all surprised by his announcement.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

One thing that has gone completely unmentioned (largely because of basketball ignorance) is just how worthless and terrible a player Jason Collins was for years. He actually fits the traditional stereotypes perfectly, and I wasn't at all surprised by his announcement.

Dude, I thought you were clueless but....Wow...There is a reason his basketball skills were not discussed, but you would not understand that reason even if hit you on the nose.

 

[calitennis127]

One thing that has gone completely unmentioned (largely because of basketball ignorance) is just how worthless and terrible a player Jason Collins was for years. He actually fits the traditional stereotypes perfectly, and I wasn't at all surprised by his announcement.

Dude, I thought you were clueless but....Wow...There is a reason his basketball skills were not discussed, but you would not understand that reason even if hit you on the nose.

Actually, they were discussed. In his interview with George Stephanapoulos, GM said that because Collins put up high foul totals, he broke the mould of the traditional stereotype of gay men being soft or effeminate. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Any time I watched him in an NBA game the mere sight of his presence was annoying because of what a worthless waste of space he was. He simply stunk. As someone who pays attention to the Euroleague as well as the D-League, I can tell you that there are scores of players who were far superior to Collins who should have been in the NBA over him. He was there simply for the stupid reasons that he was 7 feet tall, fulfilled a HIGHLY limited non-scoring role, and had a "nice" attitude toward teammates.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Nope, you still don't get it, you will never get it. I give up.

 

[calitennis127]

Nope, you still don't get it, you will never get it. I give up.

You should give up, considering that you can't define your terms and can only speak in vague cliches about being empathetic.

The fact is, Jason Collins was one of the worst NBA players I have ever seen, and now at age 34 he did a nice job of guaranteeing himself one last contract. It was a smart business move, so I'll give him that.

 

[Riotbeard]

I think this topic has gone round the houses a little bit. From Collins motives, to social and sexual politics, the bible and ancient history. First brawl of the new board?

Europe is secular and from what I can see, American media is largely liberal and intolerant. You have an actively anti-Christian Prez and a wolf in sheeps clothing vice-prez. This is how the "free" world is now. To express Catholic and Christian values is to be instantly attacked as being out-moded, intolerant, brain-washed etc.

But none of this means that a chap who's gay finds it easy to admit it, because social history shows us that, although it's easier now than it was, it's still not something anyone finds easy to say, especially if they're high profile...

Kieran,

I will say that the issue of coming out (Which seems to me what this thread should be about not tangential political issues) is fundamentally political, and it is essential to understand this history to understand why coming out matters, and why these things cannot be a private matter (at least for the forseeable future).

I will agree with you that the media is largely "liberal", but not anti-christian. I know plenty of catholics in the U.S. who certainly don't feel oppressed. In a lot of the U.S. it is in fact much more difficult to be agnostic/atheist than anything else. Even the "liberal" party in this country wears their christianity on their sleeve (including the prez and vp), even if it is a more liberal christianity than you ascribe to. I grew up in a very religiously conservative area (hence the very wide popularity of Foxnews in the U.S.).

 

[britbox]

Bizarre thread for me at least. I've never heard of the guy in question and I'm not really sure why it needed some sort of media announcement. What he does in his spare time is his own business.

 

[calitennis127]

Kieran,

I will say that the issue of coming out (Which seems to me what this thread should be about not tangential political issues) is fundamentally political, and it is essential to understand this history to understand why coming out matters, and why these things cannot be a private matter (at least for the forseeable future).

Later I will go back and correct all your errors on that point.

I will agree with you that the media is largely "liberal", but not anti-christian.

LOL....you have to be kidding. Look at the New York Times response to Pope Benedict's retirement. The national media generally disagrees with the Church on every debated moral issue.

Look at how they fawned over the completely erroneous book "Hitler's Pope", by John Cornwell. The book had so many errors and mistakes in it that even Cornwell was forced to renounce it a couple years later. But the American media glorified Cornwell and his supposed findings when the book came out, while saying nothing about the extensive refutations, including the excellent book by Rabby David Dalin, called "The Myth of Hitler's Pope".

The American media is patently and virulently anti-Christian. This is plain as day. It is completely stupid for you to ignore that.

I know plenty of catholics in the U.S. who certainly don't feel oppressed.

In what sense? LOL....yes, they can go to Church if they want to, but religion typically entails much more than that. Your argument is frivolous and petty.

In a lot of the U.S. it is in fact much more difficult to be agnostic/atheist than anything else.

Huh???? Are you serious? People sympathetic to the atheist/agnostic perspective clearly predominate in the pathetic American education system and also in the American media. The fact that American politicians mouth a few cliches about this being "a nation under God" is nothing more than a frivolous and hollow declaration meant to sound warm and cozy to everyone.

It is clear that in public life, it is completely advantageous to be someone like Bill Maher or Maureen Dowd over, say, Sean Hannity. Maher is a clueless ignoramus, as demonstrated by his 1 million-error-filled documentary "Religulous", but no one ever calls him on it. He is just described as a witty renegade "telling it like it is". The reality is that he is an under-educated ignoramus.

Even the "liberal" party in this country wears their christianity on their sleeve (including the prez and vp), even if it is a more liberal christianity than you ascribe to.

Oh, okay. LOL. So the president saying "one nation under God" a couple times makes it hard to be in atheist in America? Please, get out of here. Talk about sensitivity on your part.

So if someone has anti-Christian and non-Christian beliefs across the board, but then they make disingenuous references to the deity here and there, they "wear theri Christianity on their sleeve". Are you serious?

Please, get out of here.

I grew up in a very religiously conservative area (hence the very wide popularity of Foxnews in the U.S.).

I grew up in a very religiously liberal area where Fox News is reviled and MSNBC is king. I can tell that you are one of those wannabe urbanites from the boondocks who goes to a university for a couple years and decides to rebel against his traditions of origin, because it makes him feel progressive and worldly. Unfortunately, someone like myself sees through the phoniness in a second.

America's anti-Christian and low-standard education system is designed to ensnare rubes like yourself into a maelstrom of hatred toward their cultural ancestry, and in your case it worked splendidly. Go watch Bill Maher and tell yourself that you are sophisticated.

 

[Kieran]

Kieran,


I will agree with you that the media is largely "liberal", but not anti-christian. I know plenty of catholics in the U.S. who certainly don't feel oppressed. In a lot of the U.S. it is in fact much more difficult to be agnostic/atheist than anything else. Even the "liberal" party in this country wears their christianity on their sleeve (including the prez and vp), even if it is a more liberal christianity than you ascribe to. I grew up in a very religiously conservative area (hence the very wide popularity of Foxnews in the U.S.).

Thanks Riotbeard!

I would say that a lot of politicians in America and Europe wear Christianity on their sleeve as an act of political expedience. It means nothing. We'd have to agree to disagree with a description of Obama or Biden as 'Christian.' I don't see it, at all.

At what age to basketball players usually retire? Collins is 33, so would he be near this? If so, why was it so urgent that he announce this now? I think Britbox made a very good point above...

 

[Riotbeard]

Ok. Catholicism is not the only christianity, thus the media could be anti-catholic without being anti-christian or anti-religious. I find it debatable that it is anti-catholic, but there is certainly a better case to be made in this regard.

Cali: You are from California, I grew up in Alabama, and have lived in the South my entire adult life. I think we are unlikely to feel the same over whether the country is religiously liberal or conservative, but I could see how if you were from California, you could feel the way you do and vice versa. We are from polar opposite contexts. I live in FoxNews country.

---

Kieran,


I will agree with you that the media is largely "liberal", but not anti-christian. I know plenty of catholics in the U.S. who certainly don't feel oppressed. In a lot of the U.S. it is in fact much more difficult to be agnostic/atheist than anything else. Even the "liberal" party in this country wears their christianity on their sleeve (including the prez and vp), even if it is a more liberal christianity than you ascribe to. I grew up in a very religiously conservative area (hence the very wide popularity of Foxnews in the U.S.).

Thanks Riotbeard!

I would say that a lot of politicians in America and Europe wear Christianity on their sleeve as an act of political expedience. It means nothing. We'd have to agree to disagree with a description of Obama or Biden as 'Christian.' I don't see it, at all.

At what age to basketball players usually retire? Collins is 33, so would he be near this? If so, why was it so urgent that he announce this now? I think Britbox made a very good point above...

Haha, no problem. I am enjoying this debate, and am glad it can be done mostly in an even tone. I think it depends on which side you are on. If you are of a more "conservative" religious sect, I can see why you might feel that way, but as an agnostic, I tend to want to yell stop talking about your faith or jesus and just talk about politics/policy. You are probably right that it is at least somewhat political. I can't speak to Britbox's point, I don't really follow basketball, so I cannot speak to any technical dynamics of that game.

 

[Kieran]

Ok. Catholicism is not the only christianity, thus the media could be anti-catholic without being anti-christian or anti-religious. I find it debatable that it is anti-catholic, but there is certainly a better case to be made in this regard.

There's at least six new threads in this statement!

But not on a tennis forum, I reckon. It's not the place I go to debate my faith, unless it's my faith in Pete as GOAT (but don't tell Ricardo... )...

 

[Riotbeard]

Yeah, we are moving into a dark corner that probably should remain unexplored in the tennis forum.

 

[DarthFed]

Bizarre thread for me at least. I've never heard of the guy in question and I'm not really sure why it needed some sort of media announcement. What he does in his spare time is his own business.

Timing is everything. With more and more states legalizing gay marriage and a growing focus on there being homosexuals and homophobes in sports in the US, this became huge news. Bigger news than it should have been.

I agree with your sentiments though that hopefully there is a time in the near future that an announcement like this doesn't make huge news here. The fact that a complete journeyman coming out is making such a splash indirectly shows there is a long way to go for the gay community here.

As for Collins...It does take courage and that is to be applauded. We might look back many years from now and view this as even a bigger deal than it is now. I'm also glad he did it after the season because that would be a major distraction for a team

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Nope, you still don't get it, you will never get it. I give up.

You should give up, considering that you can't define your terms and can only speak in vague cliches about being empathetic.

The fact is, Jason Collins was one of the worst NBA players I have ever seen, and now at age 34 he did a nice job of guaranteeing himself one last contract. It was a smart business move, so I'll give him that.

The only one here who does not understand what I wrote is you , because you are just not capable. Please point to me where I talked in cliches, and answer the questions I asked you couple posts back.
Only you could make this about a contract issue. That is so sad, really...

 

[calitennis127]

Because there aren't thousands of gay man who are or were married for years, even have kids, but decide to come out eventually.

That is called being bisexual, or having a sexual identity that has changed or evolved over time. There is no such thing as a pure "gay gene" or gay trait.

These man , for mostly social reasons, try to convince themselves that they are "normal", that how they feel about themselves will eventually pass...

Thanks for the really scientific analysis there. I appreciate it. So someone experiences sexual identity fluctuations over the course of life, and this is supposed to make me cry over how they are supposedly stuck in a psychological Auschwitz? Oh my. What a sordid condition.

Please, pass me the tissues so I don't flood the room with tears.

It is not about living with someone for years and not being attracted to them...It is about playing a role, while feeling differently inside.

LOL....you have to be kidding. This is logic in your mind? Okay, so you do acknowledge that Big Friendly Jason Collins may very well have been sexually attracted at some point to a woman he was in an 8-year relationship with? Wow, I'm glad you can at least make that concession.

So we both agree that they probably enjoyed sexual pleasure together at some point, yet when Jason Collins decides - well after his 30th birthday - that he is just plain "gay" 100% through and through, then I am supposed to weep at how much he has suffered? Please. Give me a break.

Again, the condition we are talking about here is bisexuality and sexual identity fluctuation. This is not the case of someone who has lived in torture for 30 years because of a natural sex attraction to other males. Please stop living in this irrational fairy tale land.

I am not familiar with that feeling, and I am pretty sure you are not either, but the difference between you and I is that I can empathise, whereas you cannot. In my opinion , that makes me a bit more "rational " than you.

Empathy is nothing more than feeling rooted in a certain thought process. So if we don't subscribe to the same line of thinking, we will probably be on different pages when it comes to what we are empathetic toward.

As far as history is concerned, times change. We are not throwing virgins down a volcano anymore because gods tell us to do so. It is bad for morale, apparently...So, you get on with the times, accept new realities.

Cultures evolve over time, but there are some basic realities about human nature and human morality that do not. Like I said, the vast weight of anthropological and ethnological evidence shows that the basic essence of human marriage universally has been between a male and female for the purpose of procreation.

To go back to my socialism analogy, private property has also been a sound norm across cultures and eras. Communism foolishly tried to eradicate this reality and it was disastrous. Basic facts of human life such as private property and marriage are not things to play around with. They are not minor or petty or whimsical. Communism tried to re-write and re-design human nature, and anyone who has read a couple books on it knows what a sordid disaster it was.

And since almost %50 of what you call "natural" marriages are ending in divorce, nature seems to have aimed rather low, no?

Didn't I already explain why that is? The problem isn't with heterosexual marriage per se, but with the frivolous way in which people get married now. It's on a whim and it is seen strictly as a consensual contract between two individuals. That is the problem with marriages, besides the fact that human beings are imperfect and you will never see a 100% success rate with anything.

And talking about "natural" and "human", a male, who is genetically programmed to spread his seed every chance he gets, does not bode well for "traditional" marriage, does it? If we are talking in biological terms, monogamy is a load of crap.

LOL....first of all, what you call "traditional" marriage is better referred to as universal marriage or actual marriage. The term "traditional" is simply a pejorative, actually meaning "retrograde". Marriage is what marriage is and always has been and always will be. It is a basic fact of human life that has not changed and will not change. It just is what it is. It is universal more than "traditional".

Second, if monogamy is a load of crap, then why do you want homosexual men to be bounded up in a monogamous "marriage"? Why clamor for that right if they just want to spread their seed all over other men? That is a total contradiction on your part.

Third, the fact that men want to spread their seed everywhere in terms of physical urge has nothing to do with social relations or social institutions. In the most fundamental evolutionary sense, yes, we are primates and mammals. But we also possess reason, language, social institutions, and law. Because, as Aristotle put it, we are "social creatures" or "creatures made for society", we have always formed families and always will. In this sense - of our organizational nature as human beings - monogamous marriage is entirely natural and possible.

Since you are into history, biology, anthropology and all sort of other things, are you supporting polygamy Cali? Because as far as the male is concerned, that is the natural way, no?

No is right. It isn't "natural" in a human sense. In an animalistic sense, it is natural. But humans are only partially animals. They are advanced above animals, particularly in the domain of reason, language, formalized social institutions, and law.

At the end of the day, this thread is about a guy, who feels a certain way about himself in an environment where that certain way is not appreciated, having the courage to do something no one in his shoes has done before , and that is a fact.
You might not like it, but it is what it is.

At the end of the day, this whole story is a silly celebration on the part of an ignorant and truth-hating media establishment. They are taking one of the worst NBA players I have ever seen and celebrating him for deciding just 3 years ago that he is 100% gay. LOL

Only you could make this about a contract issue. That is so sad, really...

No, it happens to be true. Now he will definitely be signed because the NBA doesn't want to come across as homophobic.

I hope everyone enjoys the torture of watching Jason Collins play the beautiful game of basketball some more.

 

[shawnbm]

Bizarre thread for me at least. I've never heard of the guy in question and I'm not really sure why it needed some sort of media announcement. What he does in his spare time is his own business.

This!. Thank you, britbox.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

i know a few gays who were in the closet and were married to wimmin, i've had this convo loads of times,

I know a bloke I went out with was in the closet and ... his wife got suspicious hired a private detective to trail him for a bit, and she found out he was gay that way...then she confronted him and he said he was gay, she decided to blackmail him into her keeping quiet or she would tell their 3 kids, he had to pay her money every month (don't know how much),

this had been going on for around 8 yrs when I met him and he was my boyfriend, I spent ages trying to get him to either tell his kids himself, tell the police he was being blackmailed, get wired up so he would go round and see her and trap her by getting her to talk, but HE WOULD NOT we even sat outside her house in the car a couple of times he said things like....

....SOMETIMES HE THOUGHT ABOUT KILLING HER AND THEN HIMSELF

this was a nightmare with no visible end in sight so after about 4 months of this I said to him..if you don't end the blackmail then we can't continue as a couple, :heart: he chose to stay in the closet and he chose to keep on being blackmailed. :huh:

this Jason basketball bloke is hopefully the first of many closet (non heterosexual) people in sports who feel like theydon't have to..Lie, be fake people, be scared, be intimidated by bigots.

:heart: will always win over.

 

[Kieran]

Now, don't take this wrong, and I don't approve of blackmail, but did you ever wonder how that guys wife felt when she found out? I mean, can you imagine how exposed and hurt and betrayed and sickened she felt?

I'm not condoning blackmail, but hell had no fury, etc, and in the narrative you have us, he's cruising toilets and carparks? And she found out? He's lucky she didn't shoot him.

And wouldn't he have had to pay for his own kids upkeep anyway? Or was that separate?