Slow Progress Is Still Progress

Hello, faceless entities that I do so enjoy, and welcome to another installment of that thing that's uber-popular overseas and easily dismissed in the States.

I'd like to think I do more for you than just kick over my soap box and jump on top of it but my voice is just so darn velvety that I guess I'm just like the rest of these schmuck bloggers so how can I lash out at you for not labeling me any different?

Because I am!  I use big words to tell dirty jokes!  I relate to the poor and the rich while staying so deliciously middle class!  I have an educated background that I choose to ignore and just spew random verbs and nouns together to get a cheap laugh from someone I've never met!  What?!  WHAT?!

So I don't know if you heard but there's a guy named Michael Sam (one love for my two first-names people, where you at?) who decided to tell the world that he's gay.  Good for him, I wish him all the luck, and I hope he finds the man of his dreams.  Eh?  What's that?  Oh because he's an NFL-draftee hopeful, and a great pass-rusher from the SEC we need to talk about this more?  Siggggggghhhhh.  Didn't we do this in The Great Divide?  I'm pretty sure we did.  But okay...I guess...

Saying the Michael Sam announcement isn't a big deal is the same thing as saying that any pivotal moment in any human civil rights movement wasn't that big of a deal.  This is a huge deal because we're getting ever so closer to this not being a big deal at all and that's the ultimate goal.  Jason Collins broke the barrier with his announcement but he's 35 and hasn't played an NBA game since he came out and likely won't again at this point but I hope I'm wrong.  Sam is different.  He's leaving college for the NFL the year after being named SEC Defensive Player of the Year.  He will be drafted and he will play in the NFL next year.  Sure, there's been gay football players before but they haven't come out until after they retired.  Sam is the first to announce he's gay before starting his NFL career.  Monumental?  Check.

Sam's announcement has been met mostly with sincere admiration of his courage and acceptance by athletes of all walks of life.  There has been little detraction but that just brings me to Jonathan Vilma.

Vilma, as far as I know, isn't a bigot--or even an asshole maybe!  He's just a guy voicing his opinion like the rest of us and he said some things before his camp got to him and made him backpedal and say some PR things instead.  Basically the gist of what Vilma said was how he was supposed to act if a player that was openly gay happened to glance over at Vilma while he was changing or getting out of the shower.

Jeez, I don't know, Vilma.  He would just have to resist the temptation I guess!  I thought I was the only one around here who thought the sight of my naked body was irresistible?  I guess Vilma and I have something in common after all!

Michael Sam said he was gay, not a sexual deviant.  I work with women everyday and I have yet to get a sexual assault charge.  Granted I've never showered with any of them but if it was acceptable to have a uni-sex shower at my work I think things would work out pretty smoothly.  Okay that's a terrible example...but the point remains the same.  We're all professionals in a professional atmosphere and our personal life choices don't affect that.

Vilma's words were the template for any athlete that's ever had a concern about a gay person in the locker room.  Isn't that always the first words out of an ignorant person's mouth?  "Well shoot, how am I gonna shower with them?"  It's okay Adonis, that just leaves more hot water for you because all gay athletes take cold showers as a coping mechanism for working in the Sexiest Place on Earth.

There's going to be more than just this, I can guarantee it.  Hell, I run into idiots every single day of my life and I'm not even a public figure.  But the good news is that Michael Sam appears to be one tough guy and the other good news is that he's going to get drafted into the right locker room too.  The front office that looks at his stats and realizes how valuable a pass-rusher is instead of looking at his dating record and bedroom tactics is going to draft him.  I love the management team of Green Bay and Baltimore and wouldn't be surprised in the least bit if he goes to either one of those teams.  He'll get in the right situation, he'll find his version of a Pee Wee Reese, and the rest will eventually fall in line.

And I hate to get all Forrest Gump on you guys but that's all I have to say about that.

Float on, you graceful swans.

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.