By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | June 1, 2015 |
By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | June 1, 2015 |
As I wrote last year, it’s a big deal when the sports world finally comes around on a social issues concerning sexual orientation, as sports talk radio did when Michael Sam became the first openly gay player drafted in the NFL. It’s kind of a litmus test of acceptance: If your average Cleveland Browns fan is cool with a gay player in the NFL, you’ve reached a turning point, and sports talk radio — at least from what I could hear in my market — did an admirable job of tempering their oafishness and preaching acceptance to their listeners.
The fact that ESPN will be honoring Caitlyn Jenner at this year’s ESPY Awards by giving her the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage is also a much bigger deal than you might think. The sports world is not exactly known for its progressiveness, but having ESPN stand behind Jenner will help those not only on the coast, but those in the South and the midwest come around to accepting Jenner for who she is. It’s not nothing when the network that airs College Gameday, Monday Night Football, the World Series of Poker and, uh, Mike and Mike in the Morning honors someone for living as her true self.
Meanwhile, over on Fox News, it’s business as usual. Neil Cavuto welcomed Caitlyn Jenner with typical, Fox News repugnance, as the network seem to relish in misidentifying her gender, asking “What the hell is going on?” and suggesting it was the end of American civilization. “Rome, it’s final days!” Hey, but calling that pundit Charlene instead of Charlie? Hilarious, you bloated bags of hot, smelly ass.
You keep doing you, Fox News, and while the rest of the world transitions into the 21st Century, you can soil yourself into irrelevance.