In March, in a post about Dr. Ben Carson’s awful apology for his ignorant statement on CNN about prison turning prisoners gay, I compared his ignorance to that of Mets second-baseman Daniel Murphy, who had just listened to Billy Bean, a former major league baseball player who is gay, and had been appointed as the sport’s “ambassador for inclusion.” Murphy said,
“I disagree with his lifestyle.I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual. That doesn’t mean I can’t still invest in him and get to know him. I don’t think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect. Getting to know him. That, I would say, you can still accept them but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100 percent.”
His statement loosely translated means, “I don’t know anything about gays except what I have been told by people who also know nothing about gays but think they do. I believed all of it, since, honestly, I don’t think about the topic much. But the question was about whether the fact that a team mate was gay would cause me to distrust him or not want to play with him, and my answer is no.”
Later Murphy elaborated,
“Maybe, as a Christian, that we haven’t been as articulate enough in describing what our actual stance is on homosexuality. We love the people. We disagree the lifestyle. That’s the way I would describe it for me. It’s the same way that there are aspects of my life that I’m trying to surrender to Christ in my own life. There’s a great deal of many things, like my pride.”
I mentioned Murphy then because he, unlike Carson, is just a baseball player, and his having ignorant ideas about gays (what does “disagreeing” with the fact that someone is gay even mean? He’s gay–you can’t “disagree.” Anyone using “lifestyle” to describe gays has just written his ignorance in sky-writing. If one knows any gays at all, the idiocy of this is manifest. What would ever make an 8 year old wake up one morning and say, “I’ve weighed the options, and made my choice: I want to be gay!” This literally never happens.) and stating the ideas out loud only hurts Murphy, while Carson’s ignorance is relevant to the job he’s seeking and his qualifications for it. Carson is a narrow, biased, irresponsible amateur, and thus unqualified to hold office. Nobody, however, should care what Murphy thinks, as long as he can hit and field his position.
For someone who is clueless, Murphy’s comments are even admirable. He’s not going to judge a man’s character based on “his lifestyle” or wish him ill, which makes him infinitely preferable to Slate’s gay issues blogger, Mark Joseph Stern.
I have encountered only two of the trendy journalistic phenomenon known as the “LGBTQ issues blogger/ columnist,” but both of them were obviously chosen for their sexual orientation rather than their ethics or acumen. The Mets, as you should know, just lost the World Series in rather ugly fashion, with Murphy making two damaging errors that led to the loss. Stern writes (his essay was titled, “The Mets’ Anti-Gay Daniel Murphy Lost His Team the World Series. Good”):
Murphy is perhaps the most explicitly and unabashedly anti-gay figure in major league sports today.
…Of course, Murphy has every right to hold these beliefs, which earned him praise from such luminaries as the Westboro Baptist Church. He does not have a right to expand on them without discipline. Had an MLB player said something bigoted about a black or Jewish player, the league would have reprimanded him. Instead, it took no serious action against Murphy, effectively ratifying his views as reasonable and harmless.
They are not. Every year, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gay and bisexual kids kill themselves precisely because they are pummeled with homophobic ideas like these. Some overdose on their parents’ pills; some slit their wrists; some hang themselves or put bullets in their brain. LGB kids are between two and four times more likely to try to kill themselves than straight kids. Every episode of LGB victimization, including verbal harassment, increases the likelihood of self-harm 2.5 times on average, according to the CDC.
When gay kids read comments like Murphy’s—and then see that the MLB deemed them acceptable—they’re liable to conclude that they really are twisted and aberrant, that society really won’t accept them for who they are. These toxic feelings could only be exacerbated by a cult of Murphy, a growing fan base that lauds him as the Mets’ savior. To see an anti-gay player be not just tolerated, but celebrated—even by those who would otherwise rebuke his prejudice—would be profoundly dispiriting. Even I, a fairly thick-skinned gay adult, was stunned by the celerity with which otherwise tolerant baseball fans forgave his anti-gay disparagements once he started hammering homers.
Given these troubling facts, I must admit I cheered when Murphy committed a devastating, possibly legacy-blowing error in the eighth inning of Game 4. Murphy let a ball slide right past his glove, allowing the Royals to advance a runner home—tying the game, and giving the Royals a chance to perform their patented late-inning comeback routine. The astonishing bungle drew instant comparisons between Murphy and Bill Buckner, the player behind baseball’s most infamous fielding error.
Other Mets players share the blame, no doubt….But much of it falls squarely and resoundingly on Murphy’s shoulders. I sympathize with well-meaning Mets fans who watched their team collapse with all-too-familiar horror. But I’m delighted to see Murphy’s star come crashing down so publicly. Now a free agent, Murphy’s stock just plummeted, and his name will be whispered in disappointment rather than trumpeted with glee. Murphy’s horrifying performance, his downfall on the field, likely had nothing to do with his noxious personal prejudice. And yet, in some small way, it felt like justice.
What an irredeemably awful, hateful, vindictive person Stern is! I would prefer to spend a month with Daniel Murphy, whom I have heard speak extemporaneous and who seems to be a thoughtful, fair, likable young man, than spend five minutes with a jerk like Stern.
The number of misrepresentations and exaggerations in his screed are almost too many to count:
“Murphy is perhaps the most explicitly and unabashedly anti-gay figure in major league sports today.”
Gay acceptance must be doing grrrreat in professional sports, then. Murphy said explicitly that he did not hate gays; in fact, he said the opposite. He was raised in a religion that officially holds being gay as a sin. Otherwise, he simply revealed that he is ignorant on the topic. That makes him some kind of anti-gay supervillain?
“...Of course, Murphy has every right to hold these beliefs, which earned him praise from such luminaries as the Westboro Baptist Church.”
What an unethical cheap shot….and one that progressive slime-artists have been working overtime to employ of late. The technique is guilt by involuntary association, and anybody—anybody–can be attacked this way. If Whitey Bulger reads this blog and tells someone, Mark Joseph Stern could, and probably would, impugn me by writing that my blog is favored by “such luminaries” as Whitey Bulger.
“He does not have a right to expand on them without discipline.”
What? He has a right to “expand on them” any way he pleases., just as Stern has a right to be a hateful jerk on Slate.
“Had an MLB player said something bigoted about a black or Jewish player, the league would have reprimanded him. Instead, it took no serious action against Murphy, effectively ratifying his views as reasonable and harmless.They are not.”
Yes, that’s because what Murphy said wasn’t bigotry. MLB can’t punish players for stating their religious beliefs, which is all he did. One player’s views are not MLB’s views unless the game endorses them, and “not punishing” is never “endorsing.” Players say many things, and most are none of MLB’s business when they are off the field. The only content of Murphy’s statement that has any relationship to the game he plays was benign: the fact that a player was gay would not change Murphy’s ability to play with that player.
“Every year, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gay and bisexual kids kill themselves precisely because they are pummeled with homophobic ideas like these.”
Too stupid to respond to, but I will anyway. Murphy didn’t bully kids or advocate bullying kids. He said he loved the individuals but hated the conduct. Blaming Murphy’s mild—dumb! But mild—expression of ignorance regarding gays for suicides carries the hatefulness of his post to a new and nauseating level.
“Some overdose on their parents’ pills; some slit their wrists; some hang themselves or put bullets in their brain. LGB kids are between two and four times more likely to try to kill themselves than straight kids. Every episode of LGB victimization, including verbal harassment, increases the likelihood of self-harm 2.5 times on average, according to the CDC.”
This is another cheap shot, and and even worse one: a parade of irrelevant straw men. If anyone disagrees with gay activists, they are child-killers! It was irresponsible for Slate to publish this miserable artical, but I guess the editors were afraid of making thousands of gay kids put bullets in their brains.
When gay kids read comments like Murphy’s—and then see that the MLB deemed them acceptable—they’re liable to conclude that they really are twisted and aberrant, that society really won’t accept them for who they are.
No, they aren’t liable to do that; this is pure fantasy. MLB didn’t “deem them acceptable ” or anything else by ignoring them. This is today’s standard left tactic of stifling dissent.
“These toxic feelings could only be exacerbated by a cult of Murphy, a growing fan base that lauds him as the Mets’ savior. To see an anti-gay player be not just tolerated, but celebrated—even by those who would otherwise rebuke his prejudice—would be profoundly dispiriting.”
I dare the writer to find a single gay baseball fan under 30 who was thinking about Murphy’s comments of months ago when he was winning play-off games with home runs. I really doubt there was a single one. Baseball fans don’t think like that unless they…well, let me revise my dare. I dare him to find one who isn’t under psychiatric care who thought about those comments.
“Even I, a fairly thick-skinned gay adult, was stunned by the celerity with which otherwise tolerant baseball fans forgave his anti-gay disparagement once he started hammering homers.”
Stern is shameless. First, he pulls the Left’s Bizarro World definition of “tolerant.” See, Mark, allowing a baseball player to follow the religion he was raised in is tolerant. Wanting him to fail in his career because of it is intolerant. And the reason Stern was stunned is that he doesn’t really follow baseball at all. For example, in his original post, he said that Bill Buckner made his (excessively maligned error in 1986) playing FOR the Mets. No baseball fan makes that mistake. Stern doesn’t know a bat from a shinguard.
Then comes the hate, as you read.
Because of one inarticulate statement based on religion and ignorance,Mark Joseph Stern wants Daniel Murphy to be hurt, suffer, lose millions of dollars in his next contract, be a pariah and punchline like Buckner, Steve Bartman, Fred Snodgrass, and Mickey Owen (You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you Mark?) and see his life and career spiral out of control. He also wants everyone on his team, millions of fans and the organization to suffer too, for the crime of having Daniel Murphy on the team.
This is pure viciousness and hate, the kind of hate that Daniel Murphy would never practice.
Ethics Alarms 
I don’t know; maybe there’s been a comparative study done on suicide notes or something. But I have long had the impression that the sexual minority suicides are, in the vast majority of cases, driven by rejection by one of their own in relationships of their style, with relatively very few attributable to homophobia or “rejection” by those who do not have the same kind of sex. But then, Stern gets to publish what he says in a much wider medium. So he must be so much smarter than I, I have no choice but to shut up, believe everything he says, and do exactly as he says.
I think your impression is correct. If every homophobe drove to Canada, right this minute, the needle of the homosexual suicide rate and depression rate in the U.S. would likely not move an inch, based on the actual studies I’ve read. There are obvious reasons why problems in the gay community are blamed on invisible homophobia, just as other problems are blamed on invisible patriarchies or racial oppression.
I suppose if they could, they would blame the high rates of domestic abuse in gay relationships on homophobia too.
Thanks for helping me to laugh more today – sorely needed it. Now I wonder what would happen if I drove to Canada, and pulled up at the border wearing a t-shirt that said “Homophobe INCOMING!”
We’d probably assume you spelled homonym wrong and offer you ice cream.
I’d love you to cite that. My understanding is that the single largest determinant in the gay suicide rate is rejection or fear of rejection by family.
And lets be frank here, are you really suggesting that homophobia (and I hate that word, ‘homophobes’ aren’t afraid, they’re assholes) is invisible?
Here’s one: https://app.griffith.edu.au/news/2014/05/26/lgbti-suicide-study-finds-home-is-where-the-heart-is/
There are a lot of similar studies. I’d say there’s a consensus even, but with room for doubt. More tellingly, the rates of depression and suicide among homosexuals don’t drop off in countries and locations where homosexuality is accepted and even celebrated. The depression seems to come baked in regardless of environment.
By the way, Jack, I got your references to Buckner (DUH!), Bartman and Snodgrass (with thanks to Ken Burns). But you got me on Owen. Three for four. I never batted that high. Away I go to learn more about baseball…
Wow, thanks! There is always more of baseball history to learn. I don’t know how I missed that story for so long. I was all proud of myself for knowing about “Merkle’s Boner” decades before Ken Burns covered it.
The guy’s Dan Savage without the eff words. I see very little difference between this and the column written by Savage a few years ago after Tyler Clementi leaped to his death because his college roommate recorded him using the room for a gay liaison. You can read it for yourself here if you are so inclined: http://www.avclub.com/article/october-13-2010-46294
If you are not, it can be summed up as Dan responding to a letter writer who told him to lay off religious people by sticking up both middle fingers and saying all people of faith have gay kids’ blood on their hands. That’s where I finally decided that the man had no value.
Fuck our feelings? No, Dan, and no Mark, fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your families, fuck everyone who looks like you. Fuck you for being self-righteous assholes. Fuck you for taking cheap shots and using straw men to say that anyone who disagrees with you is a murderer. Fuck you for sitting behind your computers and spewing venom that would get your face smashed in if you said it to someone’s face like cowards with no backbone.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t know how guys like this get as far as they have without someone braining them with a lead pipe or making them bite the curb before splitting their heads open. It’s one thing to be passionate about something. It’s one thing to believe strongly in a cause. It’s also one thing to be legitimately angry at injustice, real or perceived. It’s another to get so invested in a cause that you decide everyone who disagrees with that cause is not an adversary, not an enemy, but evil, and worthy of nothing but hate and contempt. It’s another to throw any kind of civility out the window and write only in terms of vilification and profanity. It’s another to single someone out for this hate and contempt and vilification and publish something that’s going to be seen far and wide doing nothing but hating on someone and saying how bad he is.
You may consider the guy an enemy, you may loathe him, you may think you are doing nothing but showing him some well-deserved contempt, but I’d be willing to bet you don’t think for one minute what he might be thinking after he reads your little ditty. The odds are he’s not going to crumple. The odds are he’s not going to say you have a point. The odds are he’s going to think you’re an ass, and if you’re lucky and he’s halfway wise, that’s where it will end. However, there’s always the chance that you might piss the guy off enough that he decides to come to see you and ask you in person about this, or maybe not say anything and just teach you a lesson he thinks you need to learn. Columnists are not political figures. Security isn’t watching you folks 24/7. The odds are if you push someone too far he’s not coming for you alone and he’s not coming unarmed. I have to say, if one of the people you piss off comes for you and caves your head in with a wrench, I’m going to say it was logical consequences, not for being gay, but for being an asshole.
“I don’t know how guys like this get as far as they have without someone braining them with a lead pipe or making them bite the curb before splitting their heads open.”
Because they choose soft targets. American religious people are generally not going to react that way. You’ll notice that people like Savage don’t have much to say comparatively about Islam…
Nominated for comment of the day.
—
Seriously, Dan Savage, Perez Hilton, and Mark J. Stern will get a pass for their hate speech, because those their hate speech is directed towards are people that our entertainment and media elites approve of being targeted, so they will get away with it.
Gee, I though everyone would argue with me about it being hate speech…
Hah! Trolling again Jack?
In this context, are you asking if he is trolling?
Huh? No, I really did. But it is real hate speech, far more so than what is often called hate speech from gotcha-mongers.
Naw, it’s hate speech. It annoys me, but I’m not entirely sure on how to best confront it. I can only hope as with every other human rights movement in history, eventually time kinda smooths things over.
I think your blog tends to filter out the kinds of people who would object to calling it hate speech. They tend to self ban. I’d use Barry as an example, but I’m not actually sure which direction he would lean here. I doubt he would be a fan of Stern OR Murphy.
[reply to Steve-O-in-NJ Nov 15 at 7:28 pm]
THANK YOU, Steve-O! Your third paragraph, plus your closing sentence, expressed EXACTLY what I had considered saying in my first comment in this thread – in almost the exact same words. (I was going to go all f-bomb, even, for I believe the first time in four years commenting here.) But, the assertion about suicides served as a “Look! Squirrel!” distraction to me. The rest of what you said is, as usual, far more relevant and compelling than anything I could have thought. Keep up the bully-bashing.
Jack you let him off the hook on the baseball commentary. The piece was unfair from a baseball perspective as well. It highlighted Murphy’s error for the sole purpose of writing the piece and gloating, but anybody who watched most of the series would know that this error was a relatively small part of the story. Comparing it to Buckner? Really? And Murphy’s stock as a free agent did not “plummet” off of a couple of sub-par games. Love him or hate him, Murphy will be rich.