The Patriot Post® · The Culture Wars and Football

University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam publicly announced last weekend that he is homosexual, though he told his team last August. Sam projects to be drafted in the NFL this April, but as we noted earlier this week, he’s now less a football player than a poster child for the Left’s homosexual agenda. It’s a shame that either he was baited into being used as a pawn for this agenda or he’s such a narcissist that he couldn’t resist the lure of instant celebrity.

We thought we could then leave well enough alone until Dale Hansen, a sanctimonious Dallas sportscaster, weighed in. Hansen really hit the NFL after officials reportedly said Sam’s announcement will hurt him on draft day. If that’s so, we think it’s not so much due to potential clubhouse problems – though there may be some – but rather because teams want to avoid the inevitable media circus.

Hansen took on NFL culture, saying, “You beat a woman and drag her down a flight of stairs, pulling her hair out by the roots? You’re the fourth guy taken in the NFL draft. You kill people while driving drunk? That guy’s welcome. Players caught in hotel rooms with illegal drugs and prostitutes? We know they’re welcome. Players accused of rape and pay the woman to go away? You lie to police trying to cover up a murder? We’re comfortable with that. You love another man? Well, now you’ve gone too far!” Indeed, the NFL has a major culture problem, though it’s in part only a reflection of the larger culture. Give fatherless inner-city kids multi-million-dollar contracts and trouble is bound to happen.

But Hansen didn’t stop there; he went on to slam conservatives. He said, “So many of the same people who used to make that argument to keep blacks from playing football are the same people who say government should stay out of our lives. But then want government in our bedrooms.”

We don’t recall hearing conservatives call for a government ban on homosexual athletes. In fact, most conservatives take issue – politically at least – only with the homosexual agenda of redefining marriage and forcing acceptance upon the rest of us. We do not seek to personally persecute homosexuals. Quite the contrary.

There are also a couple of things Hansen neglected to mention. For starters, leftists may say they want government out of their bedrooms, but they have no problem insisting that taxpayers pay for what happens there. And as for racism, it was Democrats who were and remain the party of slavery. In the past it was real chains and then Jim Crow. Today it’s the ObamaNation Poverty Plantation, the effect of which is much the same. So before Dale Hansen begins the pride parade for Michael Sam, a little perspective is still needed.