When Major League Baseball learned that Oakland Athletics player Matt Joyce had allegedly used a gay slur at a fan during a game Friday, the league opened an investigation into the matter. Joyce apologized publicly, the league slapped him with a two-game suspension, and everybody moved on.
Sorry, not everybody. Former MLB player and World Series champion Curt Schilling wasn’t very happy that the league was looking into the matter, and was equally offended that gay people were offended by the use of a slur. He took to Twitter to vent:
Schilling last year lost his job at ESPN after he created a grotesque social-media post demeaning and belittling transgender people. Schilling has been no friend of the LGBT community for years, all the while claiming he’s some sort of champion because he welcomes gay people into his house.
“But my kids have gay friends!”
Now he’s saying that, as long as you use slurs “in the heat of the moment,” it’s totally fine and no one should be offended by it. A two-game suspension? For using slurs?
“Fascism!!! First Amendment!!!”
As we’ve said over and over again, the use of slurs deeply hurts young teenagers cowering in their locker rooms, as well as strong, powerful men afraid to share their true selves in Major League Baseball. While terms like “snowflake” are designed by people like Schilling to rile up his homophobic base and charge head-first into a social-justice war with LGBT people, his labeling of folks with very real personal struggles couldn’t be more far off.
Instead it’s Schilling, who blocks people on Twitter that he disagrees with (I’ve worn that badge of honor for over a year now), who seems to be a bit of a “snowflake.”
