It's pretty much a foregone conclusion these days that if you say a word about homosexuality - unless it's to express unrestrained celebration of it - you will be attacked in the most vile of terms. Michelle Malkin's Twitchy has done a nice job of chronicling what happened the other day when former Colts and Buccaneers head coach Tony Dungy said that he, were he still an NFL head coach (he's now a commentator for NBC, at least for the moment), would not have drafted openly gay Michael Sam as the St. Louis Rams did.
Gay activists unleashed a predictable array of hateful and profane assaults against Dungy, which is pretty ironic for people who claim to be "against hate." Click the link if you want to see it. It's pretty nasty.
But the more troubling response to Dungy's statement is the one we see written by Dan Graziano on ESPN.com. Now remember, Dungy did not declare that Sam should be kept out of the NFL because he is gay. He expressly said the opposite. Rather, he said that if he were the coach, he would not have invited all the media distractions that would come with drafting Sam. That's the same thing we talked about here back shortly before the draft occurred and the media immediately turned Sam - a seventh-round draft pick for crying out loud - into the biggest story of the draft. As far as Graziano is concerned, Dungy has a responsibility not to express his opinion:
The problem is that Dungy's words can, and likely will, have an effect on other teams and front offices to come. There's little doubt that, somewhere around the NFL, there are people in positions of power who would choose not to pursue an openly gay player for reasons of bigotry and/or fear. Dungy has now publicly offered such people and such front offices a ready-made excuse. If you're a GM or a scouting director who's prejudiced against or scared of the societal progress Sam represents, you're now licensed to pass on him and all who follow him and use the "distraction" issue as your excuse. And when you do, if people want to pick at it and ask you how you can say such a thing, you can now say, "Well, Tony Dungy said it! And everybody respects him!"
The extra that comes with Sam matters in the big picture, and it's a shame that someone in Dungy's position would say something that might affect it negatively. The point of what Sam is doing, and the reason he's doing it publicly, is so that others who find themselves in the same situation in the future can come out and live openly without fear that doing so will keep them from pursuing their dreams. Dungy's words can do damage to that progress, and, for that reason, he shouldn't have said them.
I'm not here to call Tony Dungy a bigot or to dispute his right to say what he wants to say. My point here is that Dungy has a platform and that his words matter to those who work in and follow the NFL. And on an issue such as this, it's important for a person in Dungy's position to understand that and to think about the impact his words have on the world at large. Again, he's welcome to his opinion. He just needs to remember how many people are listening to it.
So because Tony Dungy is respected, he ought not to say what he thinks because someone might think there is value to it, and someone might make a decision that would at least in part be influenced by it.
You know what Graziano is really saying here? He's saying that the gay agenda cannot survive a healthy and honest debate. And that's the truth. If you're an NFL coach and you're considering drafting a certain player, you absolutely have a responsibility to consider any exterior baggage that might come with that guy. NFL general managers, coaches and scouts look into the personal background of every player they draft, and they take it into consideration when they make their decision on draft day.
If a guy is going to be accompanied by a media circuis, you need to consider whether he is a good enough player to be worth subjecting the rest of the team to that type of nonsense going on all around them. If Sam is as good a player as his cheerleaders insist he is, then the fact that he wasn't drafted until the seventh round tells you that 31 other teams judged him not good enough to be worth inviting these types of distractions. And until the very final round of the draft, so did the Rams.
The campaign for all things gay will not and cannot engage in honest debate with those who raise objections to it. It has to either unleash hatred and rage against them or make demands for their silence disguised as thoughtful commentary.
If people listen to Tony Dungy's concerns and decide that he's right, and that it would be in the best interests of their teams not to draft openly gay players, then they have done what they think is best for their teams and Dan Graziano has no business telling them they must do otherwise.
Michael Sam has made a decision to make his homosexuality, not his football skills, the defining trait of his personhood. He made a decision to kiss his boyfriend on national TV and dare anyone to have an issue with it. He made a decision to have the Oprah Winfrey Network follow him around in training camp for a reality show.
If he has the right to do all that, then Tony Dungy has the right to comment about whether a smart NFL coach would want it going on when he's trying to get his team ready for the season.
If the champions of the gay agenda can't handle that - such that they must demand the silence of people like Tony Dungy - it's because they're afraid of the debate, and the only answer they have to what they know are Dungy's legitimate points is "Shut up!"
