The New Civil Rights Battle

One of them most stunning stories in the sports world so far this year hasn’t even been on the field. John Amaechi, a center who played for several different NBA teams from 1995 to 2003, has just recently came out and announced that he is gay.
When his coming out, America’s newest and most complicated several rights battle has been taken to a whole new level. The United States has always had sports and civil rights go hand in hand. From the exclusion of black players to women, we are no strangers to strangers among us.
Jesse Owens was the first black athlete to achieve success in a white-dominated arena with his gold-medal performance in the 1936 Olympics. Jackie Robinson made the breakthrough in baseball in the next decade and over the second half of the twentieth century many other color barriers were broken. Women like Billy Jean King, Lisa Leslie and Mia Hamm helped paved the way for women to have a place in sports. Now Amaechi, becoming the first NBA player to say he is gay, has started a whole new movement. It must be noted that he not the first professional athlete to come out but the first one to receive this much publicity.
But does this movement compare to the other two? In some ways yes, people who are seen has lesser people achieving despite the disadvantages. In other ways, the movement is very different. That one difference is huge and it may the roadblock in the whole movement. Black and women athletes had absolutely no control over what their skin color or gender was. They were who they were because God made them that way. It can be debated whether homosexuality is a choice or whether people are born that way. A complicated discussion that has no simple answer. But there is more decision in it then color or gender. And within that, lies the difference between the other movements.
This difference will be the biggest obstacle in the gay rights movement. People will know that there is some decision and every decision is subject to judgment. Color and gender can receive no judgment.
Unfortunately for this movement, this judgment will be cast down by a group of people that are in a masculine profession and often have little sympathy for the gay community. The sports profession sees homosexuality as weak and weak does not cut it in sports. Obviously this a skewed view, since sexual orientation has no effect on one’s playing ability. The other more serious judgment however, coming from the profession will be that of morals. Sports is still strongly traditional culture and religious. We still sing that national anthem, say the Lord’s Prayer and eat popcorn. And this part, which is primarily traditional Christian, sees homosexuality as immoral. It is belief, and like other beliefs, it must be respected. Now whether this belief is correct is not all to be discussed, this not the right column for that conversation. What is to be discussed is that America is to protect beliefs and that the belief that homosexuality is immoral is held by many in the sports community leaving this movement with strong cultural barriers to break.
Some believe that Amachei is not taking the correct strides in the movement. One ESPN columnist said that Amachei is doing more harm that good to the movement by coming out after he has retired. That by not coming out while still playing is showing a lack of courage to take the full brunt of criticism. One must think that these comments are very true. The sports culture demands that men be men and with Amachei coming out later did not perform his duty to the full extent. This makes that next big step to a player to come out while still playing and that will be even more challenging.
We are not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the movement with Amaechi’s coming out; we are seeing him merely open the door to the tunnel. It has been over 70 years since Owen’s triumph in Germany and African Americans are still struggling to gain certain positions in sports. They are very close to achieving absolute equality, but not quite. It is very possible that we will not see that same level of equality for the gay community in sports in our life time.
The beliefs and the morals regarding this movement make this issue so much more complicated that other equal rights movements. One side will have to break before there is peace again. The fear however, is that peace will come after years of hatred. We are all children of God. We all love the feel of the grass beneath our feet, the ball in our hands and the thrill of victory. We are all human beings and we all love to play the game. Let us not let needless and horrible hatred denies us of that joy.