The Argument Over Being Gay In A Professional Sport

(The picture of Michael Sam above from Sports Illustrated is by Matthew Visinsky.)

A few days ago, college football player Michael Sam admitted publicly that he was a gay man. This should not have been a news story, but it has become one -- mostly because the owners, coaches, and players in the National Football League seem to still have some growing up to do. Some of them have tried to make the idiotic argument that he would be a disruptive factor in the "locker room". But the truth is that they would be the disruptive ones -- not Mr. Sam.

The sad fact is that Mr. Sam, through his public admittance of something that should not even matter, has probably cost himself a lot of money. As the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, he was a very highly rated player and would probably have been drafted in the top couple of rounds of the NFL Draft. Now he is being projected to go in the fifth round or lower (which would mean his initial contract would be for much less money).

Frankly, I don't understand why his sexual orientation should matter at all -- whether he's a football player or doing some other job. He can either do the job, or he can't -- and his sexual orientation doesn't have anything to do with that. And if he can do the job (and his college career has shown he most likely can do it very well), then that is all that should matter when it comes draft time (and time to field the best players a team can get).

I know some people will try to say sports is different, because the men must shower together. But that is an incredibly stupid argument -- and one that shows that person's own insecurities and inadequacies, not those of Mr. Sam (or his ability to do the job).

It is time for this country to get past this kind of bigotry, whether in sports or any other profession. And fortunately, most Americans agree with that. The charts below show that. They are taken from a new YouGov Poll (taken of 1,000 nationwide adults on February 10th and 11th, with a 3.7 point margin of error).

Note that a large majority of Americans would approve of their team signing a gay athlete (65%). For them, the talent level would be far more important than whether the athlete preferred a man or woman in a love relationship. In fact, most of the public (68%) don't think it would be appropriate for the team to even investigate a player's sexual orientation. And an even larger percentage (74%) think it would be inappropriate for the news media to "out" a person as being gay (it seems that Mr. Sam came out publicly because the media was investigating that question).

It's time for the NFL and the news media to do some growing up. It's time for them to take a cue from the public at large, and dump their bigotry.