Jason Collins comes out as gay NBA player
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Collins' act wows victim's parents
In his historic coming-out essay Monday, NBA veteran Jason Collins revealed to Sports Illustrated that he wore the number 98 in 38 games this season while playing for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards as an unspoken “sign of solidarity” with the gay community.
He said he did so as a nod to the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention foundation founded in August 1998, and also in memory of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who was killed in October 1998 in one of the most infamous antigay hate crimes in history.
Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy, had never spoken to or met Collins before receiving an email from David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign with a link to the SI piece Monday morning, but it doesn’t make Collins’ expression of unity any less meaningful.
“It made me cry,” Judy Shepard told FOXSports.com during an interview Monday afternoon. “It was really quite a tribute, and I was very honored. And I know Matt would be thrilled.”
And the Shepards hope, someday, to be able to thank Collins personally for his bravery in opening himself up to the world and honoring their son’s name in the process.
“I would really love to speak to him, because I know Judy and I would just like to thank him,” Dennis Shepard said. “Because, No. 1, he had the courage to come out, period, and No. 2 that he wore 98 in honor of Matt, the year that he died.
“(Collins) couldn’t have been that old (when it happened), so it must have had a tremendous impact on him, the story behind Matt, for him to want to do that. And then to wear it all this time without telling people why until today, that’s incredible.”
For the Shepard family, who started the Matthew Shepard Foundation on Dec. 1, 1998 – what would have been Matthew’s 22nd birthday -- as a way to promote awareness and positive change with respect to the gay community, progress is vital regardless of where it comes.
In 2009, it came in the form of the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which effectively classified anti-gay crimes as hate crimes.
“It’s a whole different world now from when we first started doing this,” Judy Shepard said. “It’s remarkable in the big picture how fast things have changed, especially since Obama became president. It’s just moved right along at light speed, and it’s really been quite remarkable.”
But to see that motion toward change come in the world of sports, an arena that’s somewhat lacking when it comes to gay rights, was particularly meaningful.
“Hopefully this will start the conversation saying there’s no difference, as long as my team wins, who cares if they’re straight or gay?” Dennis Shepard said. “There have been a lot of athletes that played and were gay, and I have a feeling their teammates knew it and they just didn’t care.”
Added Judy Shepard: “It’s always more challenging in team sports to have the courage to (come out), and I think that once the doors open, the floodgates will literally open. And not just in pro sports, but college and all down the line. It’s just a remarkable step forward.”
That’s a feeling shared by Abbe Land, the executive director and CEO of the Trevor Project, which has fielded more than 200,000 lifeline calls since its inception nearly 15 years ago, including more than 35,000 last year alone.
“(Collins’ coming out) shows young people that they can be basketball players or hockey players or football players, and that he was willing to do that and say he’s going to be who he is when he plays ball is very important,” Land said. “I think it really helps a young person kind of know that they are perfect just the way they are and they can achieve all of their goals and dreams.”
In addition to the 24-hour phone hotline, the Trevor Project also has its own social network, TrevorSpace, which has more than 50,000 active members. So to have a backer like Collins making LGBT youth more aware of their service is immensely important.
“If (Collins) hasn’t reached out to us, we will reach out to him,” Land said. “It’s great when we have folks who have high visibility who support the Trevor Project, because for a lot of young people, these are role models. So for him to say, ‘Here’s a place you can call if you need help,’ is great. … We still have a lot of work to do, but letting young people know that it’s OK to ask for help, that it’s OK to reach out, is very important.”
The goal, of course, for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the Trevor Project and other organizations like them, is to get to a point where being gay is no longer viewed as controversial and to have the LGBT community be universally accepted. And though it won’t solve the problem altogether, having someone as visible as Jason Collins join that crusade is vitally important.
“You’re starting to see the general flow, that everybody’s realizing that there’s no difference between the straight community and the gay community,” Dennis Shepard said. “It’s just who they love, and for the rest of it, they’re out there, they have a mortgage to pay, they have kids in school, they want to have an ordinary life, retire and then die of old age with a smile on their face, just like everybody else.
“I just hope (Collins’ essay) furthers the cause, not so much for our foundation, but for the population in general, so we can get off this ride of having to worry about being the first, and these stories about who’s going to come out first. Who cares? The only first I want to know is Abbott and Costello.”
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AllOut.org Thank you to Jason Collins : hXXp://www.allout.org/thank-you-jason
11,064 people support this campaign. Help us get to 15,000
It's happened: Jason Collins, of the Washington Wizards, is the first-ever pro athlete in the US to come out as a gay man.
If thousands of us sign a massive thank you card today, we can show other famous athletes that if they want to join Jason, we've got their back.
The more famous athletes who come out, the better it's going to get for young people who love sports but are too frightened to come out to their friends and family.
Sign the thank you card to Jason Collins now – we'll deliver it to him with every signature.
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Westboro Baptist Church Vows NBA Playoff Protest In Wake Of Jason Collins' Coming Out
Jason Collins has never played for the Houston Rockets or the Oklahoma City Thunder, but that won't stop the Westboro Baptist Church from vowing to protest at those respective basketball teams' matchup in the wake of the NBA veteran's coming out earlier this week.
Fan site Ultimate Rockets reports that members of the church, which is known for its extremely anti-gay views, will picket outside Oklahoma City's Chesapeake Energy Arena, where the Rockets will face off against Thunder in a first-round playoff matchup on May 1.
Claiming that Westboro members have "picketed [the NBA's] basketball games for years," a news release indicates that both the Chesapeake Energy Arena game and a Chicago Bulls vs. Brooklyn Nets game at Chicago's United Center on May 2.
"Now has-been pervert Jason Collins has 'come out' admitting he's a proud fag," officials write in the release. "Lift up your voice against this awful sin; use the platform God gave you to warn your fellow man to flee destruction."
Other tweets visible on the Westboro's news release Twitter handle include:
What's better @HoustonChron than to have #TruthofGod >#FagNBA & #GodH8sFags seen by those going to NBA Playoff Game 5 pic.twitter.com/TchZKfjW5h
This is where they posted 2 hate mongering posters that I will leave out of this post.
Of course, whether or not Westboro Baptist Church members will actually follow up on their proposal is questionable. Last month, officials vowed to protest at the Chicago funeral of movie critic Roger Ebert, whom they deemed a "fag enabler." But as The Chicago Sun-Times' Stefano Esposito reported, members were no-shows at the actual funeral.
Similarly, Westboro members failed to turn up at the 2012 funeral of Whitney Houston despite previous vows. Instead, they tweeted a digitally altered image which appeared to show them at the late pop diva's memorial in New Jersey.
hXXp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/01/westboro-baptist-church-jason-collins-_n_3195034.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
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Oh dear, they're at it again.
Perhaps I will look out my copies of the Louis Theroux programmes about this Topeka 'Christian' family. I don't think I've posted them here.
Thanks for all the news updates
Ah well, I did try to post the two BBC2 documentaries about the Westboro Church but they are not allowed here
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Why is Jason Collins coming out a bigger deal than Brittney Griner?
By Emily Shire |Some critics blame sexism
With the nation's attention fixated for much of the last week on Jason Collins becoming the first active male athlete in a major team sport to come out as gay, you might be forgiven for forgetting — if you ever knew — that the number one WNBA draft pick, Brittney Griner, came out a few weeks ago. Or that Sheryl Swoopes did in 2005. Or that Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King did in the 1980s (the latter was outed).
How do we explain the difference in media fanfare between Griner's announcement and Collins'? Why is Collins heralded over and over as a Jackie Robinson-type figure, while Griner gets a shrug from much of the press?
As many commentators have noted, one obvious difference between Collins and Griner is that one is a man, and one is a woman. Billie Jean King, for one, blames sexism for the vastly differing levels of press coverage:
Brittney Griner came out and nobody even talked about it. I don't think I even heard anything. Because we are girls we don't get the attention. Annika Sorenstam played in a PGA tournament and the reason she got so much attention is she was playing with the men. When you are in a men's arena you get attention, and that is all you have to remember. [Via New York]
Another part of this, says Henry Abbott at ESPN, is that "heterosexual men have long acted scared of gay men, and particularly of being sexually assaulted by them." And as we all know, "fear and hatred have always walked hand in hand." In that sense, Collins had to overcome a tougher — or at least a different — kind of hurdle than Griner faced, which helps explain the differing media coverage.Of course, not everyone is buying that this heterosexual male fear of and discomfort with homosexuality explains the differing receptions for Griner and Collins. At New York, Ann Friedman chalks up the disparity in attention to the disconnect in the way we view gay men and lesbians — and male and female athletes. "We almost expect women athletes not to be classically beautiful or feminine, and therefore we're not surprised to learn their gay," writes Friedman. On the other hand, "male professional athletes are thought to be our most masculine specimens. So when they come out as gay, it seems they're playing against type." In this view, Griner's story wasn't a shock because all along there was a "perceived lack of femininity." Griner is 6' 8" and is so good that one opposing coach actually said "I think she's one of a kind. I think she's like a guy playing with women." Collins, though, meets all of our machismo expectations, so when he comes out as gay, "we sit up and take notice."
Sadly, Friedman continues, our notions of sexuality and gender roles are still deeply linked." And even though Collins has taken a big step, "it'll take more than a gay NBA player — or, say, a lesbian Miss America or prima ballerina — for us to fully learn this lesson." But at least this is the start of the "long process of decoupling heterosexuality and masculinity." One day, maybe we'll get to the same place "women and notions of feminity, too."
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Howard Kurtz: 'I Am Truly Sorry' For Jason Collins Piece (VIDEO)
Howard Kurtz addressed his notorious error about Jason Collins, which led to his firing from the Daily Beast, on his CNN show "Reliable Sources" on Sunday.
Kurtz was fired from the Beast after he penned an erroneous column that claimed that NBA center Collins — who recently came out as gay — was not forthcoming about his former engagement to a woman.
He apologized for the column on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," saying:
On Monday, I read the Sports Illustrated article by Jason Collins, the first pro-male team athlete to come out as publicly gay. I read it too fast and carelesly missed that Jason Collins said he was engaged previously to a woman and then wrote and commented that he was wrong to keep that from readers, when I was in fact the one who was wrong. My logic about what happened between Jason Collins and his former fiancee and what was and wasn't disclosed, in hindsight, well I was wrong to even raise that issue. Also, I didn't give him a chance to respond to my account before I wrote it and in addition my first correction was not as complete and as full as it should have been. In a video where I discussed the issue, I wrongly jokingly referred to something I shouldn't have joked about. I apologize to readers and viewers and most importantly to Jason Collins and to his ex-fiancee. I hope this very candid response will earn your trust back over time. It is something that I am committed to doing.
Kurtz was further grilled by NPR's David Folkenflik and Politico's Dylan Byers about the error, why he should keep his role as CNN's media critic, and his role at Daily Download.
"This is not a ritual for me, where you just come on camera and say you're sorry and you hope to move on," Kurtz later added. I am truly sorry about what happened… and I am determined to learn from this episode and and minimize the chances of anything like this happening again."
Collins spoke about dating women and almost marrying his ex-fiancee in the Sports Illustrated article announcing his coming out and in a television interview with George Stephanopoulos the next day. Sources have described Kurtz's Collins piece as merely one reason among several for his firing. Staffers, sources told The Huffington Post's Michael Calderone, had also been wondering about Kurtz's role in the website Daily Download.
CNN said on Friday that Kurtz would continue his role as the host of "Reliable Sources."
Video @ hXXp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/05/howard-kurtz-fired-cnn-reliable-sources_n_3219008.html
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Jason Collins, Gay NBA Player, Marches In 2013 Boston Pride Parade With Joe Kennedy
Jason Collins' big year continues to get bigger and bigger.
The NBA player, who made history in April as the first male U.S. athlete in a major professional sport to come out as gay, marched in the 2013 Boston Pride Parade on Saturday alongside his former Stanford University roommate, Congressman Joe Kennedy (D-Mass).
After the parade, Kennedy tweeted a photo of himself with Collins, a former Boston Celtics player, and noted it was a day he'd "never forget":
@joekennedy
Joe Kennedy
a day i'll never forget. could not have had more fun marching in @bostonpride with my friend @jasoncollins34. hXXp://t.co/42lCIlgO2X
June 8, 2013 9:35 pm via TweetDeckWatch a report from WCVB TV, which notes that the parade had a record number of attendees : hXXp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/09/jason-collins-2013-boston-pride-parade_n_3411891.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices
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I already called shotgun on Jason Collins
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don't understand the fuzz every time a famous comes out.
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Fantastic news. Absolutely courageous and awesome to see a proud openly gay, black man in the NBA. :cheesy2:
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He's retired now but had a good career and was a well respected player around the league it seems.
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