GAY TRUTH

In 1990, Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt challenged incumbent Senator Jesse Helms for the Senate in North Carolina. Gantt sought the endorsement of perhaps America ’s most famous Tarheel, NBA superstar Michael Jordan . But Jordan, early in the stages of building what would become the first global sports-entertainment brand based on an individual, shrugged off the opportunity, noting glibly, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” That would never happen today. Though most athletes still prefer a safe spot on the bench in policy bouts, very few challenge prevailing cultural or political ideologies. Some even see embracing those issues as a smart career choice. Consider NBA journeyman Jason Collins. At the end of a mediocre career and not affiliated with any team, the revelation of his homosexuality landed him the cover of  Sports Illustrated  and made him the topic of talk radio shows nationwide. Compare that success to the condemnation of NBA commentator Chris Broussard, who—when...

 In a classic episode of “ Seinfeld ” entitled “ The Outing ,” a student reporter is convinced that Jerry and George Costanza are gay. They strenuously deny being gay, while adding “not that there's anything wrong with that.” The phrase almost immediately became part of the way Americans talk about homosexuality. The “Seinfeld” episode came to mind while reading recently about the brouhaha concerning Roy Hibbert of the NBA ’s Indiana Pacers . During a press conference, Hibbert used profanity and commented about being “stretched out” on the basketball court. And then he used the phrase “no homo.” If you’re unfamiliar with that phrase, you’re not alone. It’s an expression from rap music asserting that “the speaker of such does not have any homosexual intent.” If that sounds like Wikipedia, that’s because it is. I didn’t know what it meant, and I strongly suspect that 99 percent of the people in the room didn’t either. That didn’t stop news of Hibbert’s “gay slur” from...