It’s About the Hate
February 15th, 2007
John Amaechi is getting death threats, according to the radio this morning. Before last week, no one knew who John Amaechi was. I follow the NBA, could probably name you fifty players right now, off the top of my head, and I had no idea who Amaechi was. I still have no idea who he played for, which should give you some idea of how insignificant his playing career actually was. But now he is getting death threats. What has changed? Now he is out of the closest. And some people don’t like it at all:
You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known,” Hardaway said. “I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”
Hardaway doesn’t hate the sin, he hates the sinners, to borrow a phrase. He thinks they should not exist in the world. The difference between Hardaway and someone making a death death threat is one of difference, not one of kind. They both want to see Amaechi go away, they both hate him for what he is, and they both don’t think that homosexuals should have any place in the NBA or the world. Hardaway just isn’t homicidal.
But he is a bigot and a hater.
There will be people who defend Hardaway’s comments — heck, based on the email the talk show I was listening to this morning received, there already are — based on religious scriptures. That is ludicrous. First, the case for Homosexuality being a sin is ludicrously thin. To be blunt, to consider homosexuality in and off itself a sin, you have to want homosexuality to be a sin. Second, homosexuality engenders reactions that are completely disproportionate to its place in the Bible. There are perhaps six passages that even obliquely mention homosexuality in the entire Bible. Jesus Christ never mentions homosexuality at all. There is a Gospel of the Poor, but no Gospel of the Homo Hating.
And yet it sometimes appears that the entire Religious Right is based around two things and two things only: abortion and homosexuality. Abortion I can understand. If you believe that a fetus is a life, then you should try your best to get rid of abortions. But homosexuality? Does a thing that is hardly mention in the Bible and that probably shouldn’t even be considered a sin really take up so much time? Does something that Jesus apparently cared so little about really deserve to be the focus of so much commentary and work by the religious right?
This si not about religion or God’s word. If they were concerned with God’s word, they would spend more time focusing on the things Jesus actually spoke about, and they would condemn those who work to keep people poor or refuse to help provide the enough to make sure no one starves or dies of exposure in the same harsh terms they reserve for homosexuality. That they do not, that they reserve the worst of their vitriol for the least of Biblical issues is telling.
“I hate gay people” says Tim Hardaway. He is not alone, unfortunately, and, even more unfortunately, too much of American Christianity has become a vessel for that mindless, un-Biblical hate.
Categories: Culture, Legal Issues, NBA, Sports | 12 Comments
