It’s tough to forget what Tim Hardaway said a couple years ago (“I hate gay people“), but he is trying to make amends. This Sunday, the Tim Hardaway Foundation is co-sponsoring a South Beach event for The Trevor Project, which aims to fight suicide among gay teens. That’s great. Hardaway clearly wants to move well past his comments and we should commend that.
My question: Why does he want to move past it? Comments by Hardaway to Steve Rothaus of the Miami Herald today make me scratch my head. First, he towed the Christian company line in talking about accepting gay people:
Gays and lesbians, we don't have to accept the act, but we have to accept them as people. Especially children, we don't want them to kill themselves. We want them to live their lives as they want to.
It’s tough to forget what Tim Hardaway said a couple years ago (“I hate gay people“), but he is trying to make amends. This Sunday, the Tim Hardaway Foundation is co-sponsoring a South Beach event for The Trevor Project, which aims to fight suicide among gay teens. That’s great. Hardaway clearly wants to move well past his comments and we should commend that.
My question: Why does he want to move past it? Comments by Hardaway to Steve Rothaus of the Miami Herald today make me scratch my head. First, he towed the Christian company line in talking about accepting gay people:
Gays and lesbians, we don't have to accept the act, but we have to accept them as people. Especially children, we don't want them to kill themselves. We want them to live their lives as they want to.
This is how I personally translate that statement: Some old book tells him he isn’t supposed to judge people, so he says he doesn’t. But he really does. He doesn’t like to think about gay sex (or maybe he does). He actually does want to save children, which is great, but it has nothing to do with them being gay.
After his pseudo-positive comment, he takes a sharp right turn off a cliff. While admitting he may have had a gay teammate at some point in his career, he said that athletes have a right to know if one of their teammates is gay. He then says that he would shower either before or after that gay teammate!
We have a right to know. We'd say, `How do you want to do this? Do you want to go into the shower first, or do you want me to go into the shower first?'
What the hell is the hangup with this fool? As I said, he admits he's probably already showered with gay guys! What is his problem?
His real motivation in "helping" gay people and making gay-positive statements is crystal clear in another quote in the Herald:
The endorsements will never come back. People have taken that and it's gone. I understand that. I'm trying to look for work and provide for my family. All that stuff has left me high and dry. I have to dig for work.
Ahhhhh. That's it. He still doesn't like gay people, he certainly doesn't approve of us or our "acts," but because he lost a lot of money when he said he hated us, he's trying to improve his image. What, the millions and millions of dollars he made as a player weren't enough? I had been led to believe Hardaway's change of heart was a real change of heart; But these latest comments make me believe it's just a change of wealth.
