So, a guy who plays pro sport is an idiot. Good Lord, I can’t believe it! I mean, who knew?
Yes, Yunel Escobar was dumb enough to write on his face in Spanish something akin to “You are a faggot,” thus enabling every hypocrite and self-indulgent victim fetishist to moan about the horrors of homophobia.
Big money and big entertainment will do pretty much anything to not offend the gay community these days, and in this case their acts of ostensible contrition were positively nauseating.
Frankly, I don’t think Escobar intended a slur on homosexuals, and was probably not even thinking of homosexuality when for some perverse reason he wrote these nasty words beneath his eyes. It was probably some silly, jock, inside joke.
When it’s used by teenage boys, the word faggot generally means idiot or loser. I’ve heard kids who are trendily pro-gay and pro-same-sex marriage use the term “fag” with no apparent understanding that there is a connection. I’ve also heard gay people use it about other gays. The word will disappear naturally, as is right.
It should never have been written, and no professional sports team should allow an employee to write anything, even innocuous, on his face.
But the story ends there really.
Rogers, the owners of the Toronto Blue Jays, fined the guy $90,000 and suspended him for three games, which is fair enough.
Unlike in 2011 when television sports anchor Damian Goddard was fired from Sportsnet, also owned by Rogers, just hours after he tweeted his support for “the traditional and true meaning of marriage.” He had been defending a hockey player’s agent who was receiving death threats and abuse for refusing to support a pro-gay-marriage campaign.
It could have been a coincidence of course, but we’ll leave that to the human-rights commission where it is being considered. Goddard never used an offensive word, and merely expressed his opinion of marriage. Perhaps he should have written it on his face — he may well still be employed!
As for Escobar — bad word, move on. Stop the grovelling, stop the nonsense, get it in proportion. After all, it’s nothing like what happened to Peter Vidmar. You didn’t know? OK, let me explain. Vidmar is one of the most successful athletes in U.S. history. He was chosen to be the chef de mission of the U.S. Olympic team in the last Olympics, as was gay activist Mark Tewksbury for Team Canada. But Vidmar is a Mormon, and it was discovered that he had made a small donation to the Proposition 8 campaign, enshrining marriage as the union of a man and woman. He has never called anyone a nasty name, never treated gay people badly, is an example of a gentleman in sport. But he opposed gay marriage, and after relentless pressure he was forced to resign.
So who are the bullies, who are the victims, in sport and sexuality? Nobody should face or feel discrimination in professional sport, but can we please stop magnifying a dumb gesture into an act of sociological and moral barbarism?
Oh, and as for compulsory sensitivity training, the Jays are in far greater need of baseball training. The genuine victims are the fans.
Michael is a weekly columnist with the Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg Sun newspapers, and in more than a dozen other daily and weekly newspapers across Canada. He is also a columnist for The Catholic Register, Catholic Insight, Catholic World Report, The Landowner, and The Interim. He also appears each Wednesday on Newstalk 1010 radio, and is a regular guest on networks as diverse as Russia Today and TVOntario.
He is the best-selling author of fourteen books, including biographies of G.K. Chesterton, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. He has contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography and several other anthologies. He is published in many countries and in more than a dozen languages. His last two books were on the best-seller list for more than ten weeks.
He has received several honorary doctorates and awards for his writing and broadcasting. In 2005 he won The Ed Murrow Award for Radio Broadcasting, in 2006 The RTNDA Radio Broadcasting Award, in 2007 the Communicator Award in Hollywood and in 2008 the Omni Award for his television show. In 2012 The Catholic Civil Rights League gave Coren the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Catholic Excellence in Public Life, and in the same year he was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for services to media. Michael Coren is a frequent speaker on a number of issues. Please visit the Public Speaking page for more details.
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