On Jason Collins: Why Coming Out IS-ISN’T-IS a Big Deal

When word came out that Jason Collins wrote an article for SI and, umm…came out...I wrote a text to a friend of mine that read the following: “I’m sitting this one out.”

It was a simple response to a simple request from a dear friend for 500 words about the first openly gay player in the NBA. My hesitation was and remains the same: the loudest voices representing Christian thought belong to conservatives, who have made clear “what the Bible says” on matters of life and death and everything in between. Sex puns aside: to engage in Mr. Collins’ openness requires an expanse of energy; thick, thick skin; and quite frankly – patience – because it is probably not going to be a dialogue at all. It will be an exercise in trolling, and Mondays are my Sabbath.

But the loudest voices don’t get to be rude and willfully ignorant. And when they are, they don’t get to represent the whole of Christianity. I’m reminded of the words of Edmund Burke now: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” I’m not calling Christian conservatives “evil” now, but I do think we do far too little when we hear and see something wrong.

And it is wrong for people to respond to Jason Collins’ disclosure by saying, “I don’t agree with the lifestyle,” not only because that statement is almost never preceded by someone actually asking their opinion, but because the statement itself denies Jason and other gays their full human dignity. And that’s what’s at stake right now, not how much you accept them, but how much they are able to be fully human – a claim we take seriously here in America. People who say, “I don’t agree with the lifestyle,” are almost always saying nothing. (And have the nerve to add, “But I still love them” – how magnanimous of you!) It is an exercise in hubris and denigration, and that flies in the face of Jesus more than any gay man.

And it is wrong for the Bible to be used as it has in support of homophobic behavior. Those 7 scriptures that are always quoted do not say nearly as much as many want them to say, and the questions raised by their contexts are often ignored. As to whether I and my friends (read: liberal folk) are ignoring the authority of the Bible, that is another conversation.

But you are already starting to see my point: this conversation is almost always off-topic. Jason Collins decided to live in the open; he decided that you are going to accept him as he truly is or not at all. Kudos to him. People who accept his proclamation pro forma are not “soft on sin” but strong on embracing full humanity, my theological epicenter - my raison d’être. I love when people say, “This is who I am,” or even, “This is who I think I am.” It gets me going when people decide to stop being what they are not. That’s the only decision truly gay people get to make.

You can tell that I believe one’s sexuality is not a choice. That tempts some to equate Jason Collins’ decision with Jackie Robinson, on the basis that race and sexuality are biological realities that require great courage to confront in today’s world. I think this path of comparison is wrong as well, and not because a gay man in 2013 is unlikely to cause as much of a stir as a black man in 1947 - though we KNOW this to be true. The comparison is unfair because Race and Sexuality are different monsters in America, because Sexuality has inherited the civil rights conversation from Race, and because the comparison is sexist: it ignores Billie Jean King, who came out in 1981, and Sheryl Swoopes, who came out in 2005 (controversy around her actually being lesbian aside: you get my point). It’s just not fair: too much had been done in sports before Jason, and too little before Jackie.

Here’s why it’s a big deal though: Jason Collins provides the courage necessary for many LGBTQ youth to LIVE. And that’s huge, when so many gay youth are bullied into hating themselves and worse. Whether you think it’s a sin or not, you have to validate life.

That’s always the bigger conversation – sin, text, context, grace, anthropology – and we are proving daily that we aren’t ready to have those on the internet.

So I’m sitting this one out. 800 words later. And I know that as a rapper espousing Christian values I’m cutting my nose off to spite my face. Opportunities have dwindled, and Pastor Julian may be killing J.Kwest’s shot with every sermon or one of these.

Edmund Burke better have some work for me.