Religious Right Shuns Black Gay Athlete

Last updated on: May 11, 2013 at 12:10 pm by Andre E. Johnson

Religious Right Shuns Black Gay Athlete 2013-05-11T12:10:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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On April 29, the New York Jets released quarterback Tim Tebow from their roster after only a year on a team. In ironic timing, news almost immediately followed that Jason Collins, a veteran center in the NBA, had become the ﬁrst active male athlete in a major American team sport to come out as gay.

Collins and Tebow are a study in contrasts, perhaps especially when it comes to their faith. Tebow is known for game-saving theatrics and an equally performative profession of faith politicized by the culture wars. He’s positioned himself as an all-American poster child for the pro-life movement and homophobic groups like Focus on the Family. Collins, on the other hand, is a career role player who keeps his head down on the court and his devout Christian faith, rooted in family and community identity, private.

Where Tebow’s religiosity has been endlessly analyzed by the media and championed by the white religious right, the centrality of Collins’ Christianity and faith community in his decision to come out has been ignored. Collins’ faith hasn’t gotten the attention that his race has—apart from ESPN’s attention-grabbing decision to put Chris Broussard, a sports journalist with known, religiously-motivated homophobic views, on air to directly question him about his personal opinion of Collins’ Christian witness—in the process playing into popular narratives about black homophobia.

As Peter Montgomery notes here on RD, Collins pointedly mentions that his parents “instilled Christian values” in him. He credits “the teachings of Jesus… particularly the ones that touch on tolerance and understanding,” for helping him to accept others (and ultimately himself) unconditionally. In his behind-the-scenes proﬁle of how Collins’ historic interview came together, Jon Wertheim writes that the “deeply religious” Collins found spiritual validation for his plans to come out in a “daily prayer manual” that was a gift from his grandmother—speciﬁcally a passage he read just days before his announcement:

Collins’ now famous opening lines—“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay”—allude to the inseparability of blackness from sexuality in a culture that often expects black gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to choose one identity over the other. Collins makes the point, however, that his religious upbringing is just as integral to his identity as his race and sexuality. He discusses his faith and belief in acceptance in the same breath as he does his “close-knit” and supportive family, the Civil Rights Movement, and his “[celebration of] being an African American and the hardships of the past that still resonate today.” Collins’ statement of faith, like his coming out generally, is grounded in his black identity, community, and history.

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