BW23 wrote:I didn't read through the comments here about the things that Dungy said. I pretty much steered clear of ESPN and others because I thought all of what was being said was a waste of time.
My thoughts? I do think that there will be too much hype, media and, yes, distraction around a 7th round pick. The hype, media and distractions won't be about football. That's what should be judged and talked about now.
I think it's unfair to say that because he wasn't a distraction at MU that he won't be with the Rams. It's not his teammates that will make it a distraction. It's the media. The media didn't know about it then.
The only person I've really talked to about the situation was one of the leaders off of the MU team last year, James Franklin. Franklin was certainly highlighted, for a lack of a better word, as being Christian. He was the preacher's son, the one who didn't cuss or do some of the things you'd expect from a college football player (or just an 18 or 19 year old in general). I think Franklin is the perfect case for someone being against homosexuality and not being a homophobe. He and Sam had numerous discussions on this because Sam wanted his opinion a number of times. Franklin talked about it from a Christian perspective a number of times. As James told me, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." I know those who oppose that Christian point of view here don't believe that's possible, but Franklin did love Sam and considered him a brother. They both approached each other often on the topic. But Franklin could still disapprove of homosexuality while still being a good teammate and friend to Sam.
To me, there's a similarity in the distraction that Sam will be and the one Manziel will be. Only one is just a 7th rounder while the other is the new face of a terrible franchise. At least Sam is going about his business of being a football player more seriously and not bringing it on himself. And if the both don't make it, at least Sam isn't going to be considered a bust. At least Cleveland has LeBron now to turn their focus to come October.
Socnorb11 wrote:I don't think anybody is saying that they don't like the guy. Just the opposite, in most cases.
If you're talking about disliking other peoples' ideas, then I think we all qualify as bigots.
I purposely left off the highlighting of "other person" of that definition for that very reason. I believe you, BW et. al on here when you say you love the person.
We all have bigoted thoughts and actions. Just to clarify, I never intended to personally suggest that I thought a person was a bigot. I said ... well you can go back and read I said. Just don't add anything to it or make any other assumptions and you will understand it.
trill wrote:Anyway, it's society's job to enforce norms and strangle out dissenting voices. At this point in our history, homophobia is not acceptable which, I think, is objectively great. There are all kinds of sociological and anthropological reasons that being gay moves in and out of acceptability but I hope we're at a point where people can just be themselves without fear of exclusion or worse. The voices are loud and angry now for and against homosexual integration/civil rights but that's just because we're shifting and soon, hopefully, the shift will be over.
I agree with you that exposing these things and then "enforcing norms" is what needs to happen. The thing is, we can never really stop enforcing them. There is no "shift" that will occur and then we can sit back and relax. There are *always* going to be people who want to discriminate against gays. Look at the civil rights movement. The right wingers would undo all those laws if they could (and have undone some of them, in fact). They are also working to put in new laws like voter ID to try to make things more difficult for minorities. And we've only been working on civil rights for minorities for, oh, 150 years. Just because gays win some court cases doesn't mean the struggle is over. The anti-gay people will just come at it from another angle.
