Jason Collins, The Magical Gay Elf Basketball Player

Kudos to openly gay writer Bret Easton Ellis who slammed the media coverage of NBA scrub Jason Collins' and his "heroic" act of coming out....

Was I the only gay man of a certain demo who experienced a flicker of annoyance in the way the media treated Jason Collins as some kind of baby panda who needed to be honored and praised and consoled and—yes—infantilized by his coming out on the cover of Sports Illustrated? Within the tyrannical homophobia of the sports world, that any man would come out as gay (let alone a black man) is not only an LGBT triumph but also a triumph for pranksters everywhere who thrilled to the idea that what should be considered just another neutral fact that is nobody’s business was instead a shock heard around the world, one that added another jolt of transparency to an increasingly transparent planet. It was an undeniable moment and also extremely cool. Jason Collins is the future. But the subsequent fawning over Collins simply stating he is gay still seemed to me, as another gay man, like a new kind of victimization. (George Stephanopoulos interviewed him so tenderly, it was as if he was talking to a six-year-old boy.) In another five years hopefully this won’t matter, but for now we’re trapped in the times we live in. The reign of The Gay Man as Magical Elf, who whenever he comes out appears before us as some kind of saintly E.T. whose sole purpose is to be put in the position of reminding us only about Tolerance and Our Own Prejudices and To Feel Good About Ourselves and to be a symbol instead of just being a gay dude, is—lamentably—still in media play.

Of course, the media sucking up to Collins, and the cause in general, continues in full force. ESPN boss John Skipper went as far as to issue another apology for Chris Broussard's personal opinion - based on his faith - about homosexuality.

“I think we did great other than we made one mistake: The mistake was not being more careful with Chris Broussard, and there is a collective responsibility there. Chris Broussard’s job was to come on and talk about the news of the league, how the league was representing it, and through a series of events he made personal comments which was a mistake. 

[...] We don’t quarrel with his right to have any personal point of view, although we do assert as a company that we have a tolerant point of view, we are a diverse company, and that does not represent what our company thinks.”

Yes, of course. Fully tolerant. Of everybody who agrees with them. Got it.