[Jack.Kerr]

I've never thought much of Broussard, and I don't intend this as a defense of him, but from the first time I saw that exchange on OTL, I thought that the roots of the problem went well beyond him. The question was a total set-up, and his opinion about Jason Collins' professed Christianity was as irrelevant and inappropriate on a sports-oriented talk show as a lascivious discussion of Beyoncé's curves would be in a Sunday sermon.

I thought Ben Shapiro tagged a lot of the issues here:

One (issue) is why on earth did ESPN feel the need to manufacture (and make no mistake about it, the pairing of Granderson and Broussard could not have been coincidental) a vitriol driven debate that ultimately lent a platform to views that are divisive and intolerant?

The other issue is one far more controversial than an openly gay player in the NBA. That issue is why do people in this Nation continue to embrace and defend extreme fundamentalist christian views that are unabashedly bigoted?

Not all Christians are in line with the views expressed by Broussard. In fact both LZ Granderson and Jason Collins are practicing Christians. This isn't a Christian issue as much as it is a fundamentalist Christian issue.

While it was nice that Broussard was insistent on mentioning that he viewed all people, gay or straight who engage in pre-maritial sex as sinners and in open-rebellion against god, that declaration does beg the question: "What era are you living in?"

Broussard and others who share the same views have every right to those views. We have freedom of religion in this nation, and that freedom must be applied to even those who we disagree with.

Freedom to practice one's religion is not the same as freedom to practice one's religion without having to put up with opposing and critical view points.

As a non-religious individual I find almost all religions to be somewhat archaic. There's still a huge difference between the Christianity practiced by Granderson and Collins which clearly does not exclude them due to their sexuality, and what Broussard subscribes to, which regardless of Broussard's personal feelings, unquestionably promotes homophobia.

The solutions to these problems won't be found in firing or punishing Chris Broussard.

Broussard is ultimately just another symptom of some far greater problems.

There are television networks who thrive not on reporting news, but on making news. ESPN's Outside The Lines program didn't report on any new angle dealing with Jason Collins and his bold and courageous decision.

In fact, up until ESPN aired Outside The Lines on Monday, the response to Collins declaration had been almost unanimously positive. Perhaps sensing that their programming wouldn't be able to report on any juicy stories of conflict over Collins coming out, they instead decided to create some of their own?

The station almost went so far as to own up to that charge when they released an apology not just for Broussard's remarks, but for the content of the entire program, and the controversy that it stirred up.

The other problem of course is that Chris Broussard practices a form of Christianity that promotes narrow-minded, and ultimately destructive viewpoints.

Telling an entire segment of the population that they can't get married, are living in sin, and are living in rebellion to god does absolutely nothing to bring the nation together.

To somehow imply that these people are entitled to their opinions, is a nice and easy way to skirt the issue.

What if their opinions were that interracial marriage was a rebellion against god? What about segregated schools? Embracing people who consistently disseminate biased and bigoted viewpoints because of their religion doesn't promote freedom of religion, it promotes religious conflict.

Do people such as Chris Broussard have a right to practice their religion and defend it? Of course they do, but that right doesn't protect them from critique, it doesn't protect them from being called out for their beliefs either.

Chris Broussard is a proud, born-again Christian, good for him. He's also promoting homophobia, and that's bad for all of us.

I agree with Shapiro that firing Broussard doesn't really seem to accomplish much. No point making him a martyr, and his views are so clownishly repugnant and transparently hypocritical that he does a lot to make his strain of fundamentalism terminally unappealing.

That said......

Originally Posted by jthig32

Simply saying you think homosexuality is a sin doesn't make anyone a bigot.

This says what you think bigotry isn't. What do you think the definition of bigotry is?

A person doesn't have to be committing physical violence against other people to be a bigot. I know plenty of little old sweet-smiled church ladies who will coo the Bible at you in sugared voices, but who don't regard you as their social equal (and will say so behind closed doors), and will vote to deny you your rights. And they're bigots, two-faced, hypocritical bigots. It's about attitudes, not just actions. And one of their favorite (passive-aggressive) ways of voicing and reinforcing their bigoted attitudes is to say that they'll 'pray for you', (as if you're defective) piously, self-righteously lifting themselves up, the better to look down on you--eye, speck, and plank. Just like this:

Originally Posted by dirt_dobber

and I pray for them.

And then, like clockwork, you get some sniveling coward who comes wobbling up to put the fake-victim cap on:

Originally Posted by dude1394

Most of the bigotry I see in this thread is the bigotry towards Christians.

pretending that it's not fundamentalist evangelicals who invariably hurl the first stone, then shriek like a pig with a large pointed stick up his a$$ that they're being attacked when their targets defend themselves.

You can search this forum in vain for a single scripturally-based condemnation of Dirk's living with Crystal "Meth" Taylor prior to marriage, in open defiant rebellion to God. You won't find it (nor in my opinion, should you) You will, however, find countless posts and threads (by some of the very same hypocrites here "standing with Broussard" and defending his bigotry) extolling Dirk's greatness, despite the fact that he has lived his life with a different set of values to those of fundamentalist evangelicals. Double-standard?

But let one NBA player announce that he's gay (not that he's DOING anything, just that he exists and has existed for the last 12 years as an NBA player) and you get a nimrod talking head like Broussard condemning him as a sinner, and then like little scripture-spewing roaches, people scurrying out to "stand with Broussard" and "stand with scripture". That isn't just a double-standard, that is laughable hypocrisy.

It's a little like a hen's tooth search in the bible for verses condemning religious bigotry, because if you take away the double standards, hypocrisy, and bigotry from fundamental evangelicalism, what're you left with? A religion that's a lot less useful as a tool of coercion and control? What do they call that one? I might be interested, at least intellectually.