Thoughts on Hardaway

I have been contemplating the uproar created by Tim Hardaway's candid remarks about gays and finally decided to write about it.

First of all I have no problem with gays. On this very page I said that I didn't care if Charlie Crist is gay. It just isn't anybody's business.

That said, I'm pretty upset with the media coverage of the Hardaway remarks. If we took the entire population of current and former NBA players I would venture to guess that Tim Hardaway is probably in the 10th percentile or lower in terms of intelligence. He's a guy that made a living shooting and passing a basketball, he's not a politician or a policy wonk. Prior to this incident his most famous utterance was "I got skillz". I don't know why anyone who has ever heard Hardaway expound on anything would expect him to say something intelligent about a controversial and complex issue.

I guess my problem is with the idea that Hardaway somehow represents all NBA players and their attitudes which is of course as simplistic as it is asinine. I am sure that some players feel the way he does, and I'm sure that there are players that are uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a locker or shower room with a gay player, though probably not as intensely as Hardaway. I am sure there are others that don't have a problem with it, just as I am sure that there are more than few that are gay themselves.

So what does this episode "prove" besides the fact that Tim Hardaway is dumb? By the way, I don't think he's dumb because of his personal feelings, he's entitled to them. He's dumb because a public figure needs to be cautious about what he/she says and Hardaway obviously doesn't understand the climate he's living in. I feel kind of sorry for him because he's obviously clueless.

Another angle to the story that has me a little dismayed is the people that say that it should be no problem to have a gay teammate. I have heard this phrase countless times in the last two days:

It's not like, just because a guy is gay that he's going to be watching you in the shower room or making passes at you.

Obviously gay men are not attracted to every man they see just like straight men are not attracted to every woman they see. But there is a reason we have separate facilities such as locker rooms at country clubs and gyms for men and women. It wouldn't be kosher for a male coach to shower or hang out in the locker room of a women's basketball team. Even though the coach would, in most cases, not be attracted to every woman in that locker room or make a pass at any of them. But still it would be creepy for the women, no?

I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining myself but it would seem that a relatively routine situation that previously (and perhaps naively) was void of any sexual tension would suddenly be loaded with it, whether the gay player was attracted to any of his teammates or not.

I guess I agree with Charles Barkley who just said on ESPN, that he has played with gay players, had no problem with gay players but pondered why he even has to know whether they are gay or not. I thinking that there is an inherent logic to "Don't ask, don't tell" in some environments.

And I guess it all comes down to that. It seems to me that gay activists aren't just after tolerance of their lifestyle but a validation of it. Of course there is huge debate about homosexuality and whether it's a learned behavior or a trait one is born with. I don't think it matters one way or another. Let's put it this way. Some people prefer vanilla ice cream. Some prefer chocolate. Now we aren't always eating ice cream, it's not what defines us. But when we it we have a preference. We may have been born with that preference or we may have acquired it but either way why should anyone care what our ice cream preference? Why as a Vanilla lover should I condemn the chocolate lover? Why should the chocolate lover always have to be talking about his chocolate ice cream preference trying to convince everyone that it's so great?

Having sex, just like eating ice cream is, in the end, a behavior and a state of mind. And one we only engage in it part of the time. That's my principal opposition to putting sexuality at the same level as race or ethnicity. If you are black you are black all the time. If you are Hispanic, you are Hispanic all the time. It's not a behavior, it's not a choice, it's not a preference.

I think everyone is entitled to eat the kind of ice cream they want to eat and if someone sees someone else eating a different flavor that's fine but perhaps we should all just generally avoid discussing our ice cream preference in places where it frankly isn't appropriate or necessary, like on the job.