The Great Divide

I've never meant for the Studly Pastures to be any sort of platform for religious debate because I like making jokes (and even that little line has gotten me in hot water, it's really a fine line).

Look kids, let's get it all out in the open right now.  Let us both put our cards on the table.  I fully support freedom of religion...to an extent.  You can pray to whoever you want to but when you start using your religion to preach hate, well, now you and I have a problem.

Disclaimer: Just because I disagree with you, or you with me, doesn't mean I automatically hate you.  This isn't high school.

Jason Collins breaks the barrier and becomes the first active player in one of the four major American sports to announce that he's gay.  Then the sides formed.

Hundreds (estimation based off of lack of research) came out in support of Collins, calling him 'brave' and almost immediately inducted him into civil rights lore as a hero.  To make the decision to truly be yourself and not hide from who you are is brave and for that I do commend Jason Collins.  But let's calm down just a little bit and not put him on the mountain just yet with Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King.  He came out in Sports Illustrated, is currently a free agent, and has been on six teams in 12 years.

But this had to happen, I'm glad it did, and I'm disappointed that it took until 2013.  The reason why it took so long is because the intelligence quotient of the general population is rather small and therefore they are  frightened very easily.  Small steps and deep breaths.

But there are detractors--and they don't necessarily mean to be--it's what their religion demands.  Chris Broussard, ESPN reporter, who I've flamed on here before for his inability to report anything, is now in trouble with me for something completely different.

Broussard declared that being gay was an "open rebellion to God."  I'm sorry, I thought this was Outside The Lines on ESPN, not the 700 club.  Broussard is entitled to his religion and his opinion but it would be in his best interest if he keeps that stuff to himself, or at the very least, off the air under the title of his employer.

It's not that I don't want Chris Broussard to practice his religion it's that whenever I turn to him I expect to hear some form of really shitty insider NBA information.  He never knows anything about anybody and I find that to be slightly entertaining when I listen to other analysts prattle on about San Antonio or Miami or any other team I could care less about.  I consider Chris Broussard to be the Dane Cook of religion.  He's pretty much just stealing material and making me hate even the sight of his face.

Being gay seems like a pretty roundabout way to rebel against God.  I would just renounce Him, you know, in place of all the sodomy.

Am I the only one around here who first saw the 'Breaking News' and thought 'Oh crap, what now?' only to see that Jason Collins announces he's gay and then breathe a sigh of relief and think 'That's it?'

That's not breaking news.  A gay guy announcing he's gay is the same as me announcing that I like breasts, which I did a couple of months ago.  GOOD FOR YOU BUT NOBODY CARES!  That should be a sticker they give out in kindergarten.  I want to live in that world.  Hey, that guy is gay...let's move on.  BOOM.  That simple.

Is Collins right or is Broussard right?  The answer is they both are but they should stop standing on pedestals when they talk.  They still poop like the rest of us.