{"id":1434,"date":"2013-05-11T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/religious-right-shuns-black-gay-athlete.html"},"modified":"2013-05-11T12:10:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-11T12:10:00","slug":"religious-right-shuns-black-gay-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/religious-right-shuns-black-gay-athlete.html","title":{"rendered":"Religious Right Shuns Black Gay Athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

On April 29, the New York Jets\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0quarterback Tim Tebow from their roster after only a year on a team. In ironic timing, news almost immediately followed that\u00a0Jason Collins<\/a>, a veteran center in the NBA, had become the \ufb01rst active male athlete in a major American team sport to come out as gay.<\/span><\/div>\n
Collins and Tebow are a study in contrasts, perhaps especially when it comes to their faith. Tebow is known for game-saving theatrics and an equally performative profession of faith politicized by the culture wars. He\u2019s positioned himself as an all-American poster child for the pro-life movement and homophobic groups like Focus on the Family. Collins, on the other hand, is a career role player who keeps his head down on the court and his devout Christian faith, rooted in family and community identity, private.<\/span><\/div>\n
Where Tebow\u2019s religiosity has been endlessly analyzed by the media and championed by the white religious right, the centrality of Collins\u2019 Christianity and faith community in his decision to come out has been ignored. Collins\u2019 faith hasn\u2019t gotten the attention that his race has\u2014apart from ESPN\u2019s attention-grabbing decision to put\u00a0Chris Broussard<\/a>, a sports journalist with known, religiously-motivated homophobic views, on air to directly question him about his personal opinion of Collins\u2019 Christian witness\u2014in the process playing into popular narratives about black homophobia.<\/span><\/div>\n
As Peter Montgomery\u00a0notes<\/a>\u00a0here on RD, Collins pointedly mentions that his parents \u201cinstilled Christian values\u201d in him. He credits \u201cthe teachings of Jesus\u2026 particularly the ones that touch on tolerance and understanding,\u201d for helping him to accept others (and ultimately himself) unconditionally. In his behind-the-scenes\u00a0pro\ufb01le<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0how Collins\u2019\u00a0historic interview<\/a>\u00a0came together, Jon Wertheim writes that the \u201cdeeply religious\u201d Collins found spiritual validation for his plans to come out in a \u201cdaily prayer manual\u201d that was a gift from his grandmother\u2014speci\ufb01cally a passage he read just days before his announcement:<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
Collins\u2019 now famous opening lines\u2014\u201cI\u2019m a 34-year-old NBA center. I\u2019m black. And I\u2019m gay\u201d\u2014allude to the inseparability of blackness from sexuality in a culture that often expects black gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to choose one identity over the other. Collins makes the point, however, that his religious upbringing is just as integral to his identity as his race and sexuality. He discusses his faith and belief in acceptance in the same breath as he does his \u201cclose-knit\u201d and supportive family, the Civil Rights Movement, and his \u201c[celebration of] being an African American and the hardships of the past that still resonate today.\u201d Collins\u2019 statement of faith, like his coming out generally, is grounded in his black identity, community, and history.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 29, the New York Jets\u00a0released\u00a0quarterback Tim Tebow from their roster after only a year on a team. In ironic timing, news almost immediately followed that\u00a0Jason Collins, a veteran center in the NBA, had become the \ufb01rst active male athlete in a major American team sport to come out as gay. Collins and Tebow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nReligious Right Shuns Black Gay Athlete<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On April 29, the New York Jets released quarterback Tim Tebow from their roster after only a year on a team. 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