The rumor is that four homosexual NFL players are all going to come out and announce their shared sexual abnormality at the same time:
The one reason to worry about an NFL player coming out as gay would be the inevitable avalanche of horrible jokes, hateful responses, and insane scrutiny, all directed at one human being. Nobody deserves that, and it would be ugly. But as Ayanbadejo says, “If they could share the backlash, it would be more positive.”
In addition to muting the backlash toward any one player, four players coming out in four different cities — AT THE SAME DAMN TIME — would get all kinds of love and support, too, spreading the acceptance around the country, making this a more universal sign of progress in the NFL and the sports world, in general.
First of all, as Juvenal suffices to prove, it’s not progress, it’s decline. Second, I suspect it’s not going to go quite as well as the men in cheerleader skirts would like to imagine. Not that anyone is likely say anything in public; Roger Goodell and the various teams have made it perfectly clear that this is one area where freedom of speech and expression are absolutely frowned upon and anything but unabashed approval will be punished.
But NFL players are now very good at mouthing all the right platitudes in front of the cameras and then expressing themselves on the field. They will, quite rightly, resent having this sort of nonsense crammed down their throats while simultaneously being muzzled.
I think it would be amusing if four other players announced they are pedophiles and demanded the same sort of saintly treatment from the league and the media that the other pioneers will be receiving. And it would be even more amusing to see the media whiplash that would take place if Tim Tebow happened to be one of the four players.