aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Hardaway’s homophobia: “Just my belief”

I did not move away from home; I jumped out of my bedroom window (not all that high on a suburban split-level) and ran away. Years later when I decided to mend relations, I made a trip home to tell my parents, my brothers and my sister that I was gay. Each is its own story but for today I’ll share that one brother went on a rant that ended with, “You’re still my brother so I still love you but if one of my sons ever tells me he’s a faggot I’ll throw him out on the street because I hate faggots!”

I hardly recall my reaction to that; he was stuck in his stuff. He is to this day. And guess what? One of his sons is gay. When said son told his father, my brother, that he is gay, my brother answered that being gay was worse than murder, “but you’re still my son and I love you.” Huh? Talk about tough love!

I’m reminded of this by reading Scoop Jackson’s ESPN interview with “Timmy Hardaway.” In it we hear how hard this is on poor Timmy, how he apologized to his grandmother, that he was “just having fun on the radio,” that he’s “not sleeping at night because of what someone may do.” And here his friend Scoop asks what might happen if Timmy had a friend come out to him:

OK, so let’s say one of our boys, or better yet for the sake of this interview, what if I told you that I was gay. We’ve known each other all of our lives, came up together, we boys and all, and out of nowhere I spring that on you. Told you that the wife and kids were all a facade and that all of this time I’ve been gay. How would you accept that? Or would you? Would you end the friendship?

Wow. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Wow. I’d probably be or say something like, “Me and Scoop was tight until he told me this.” Our friendship may not continue to be as tight as it is but I’d let you know that you could call me, talk to me whenever, something like that. I really wouldn’t know how to react to that.

But would you be more mad at the fact that I violated a trust issue because I never told you or that I was gay?

Trust issue. I trusted you. We talked like boys for years and you had plenty of opportunity to tell me something like this. It’s always a trust issue. It wouldn’t be because you were gay or bisexual. My issue with you would be because of trust, because you never told me.

Odd, that particular interpretation of where trust lies. It is, of course, precisely because gay people can’t trust that those they know and love will still love them after they reveal a gay identity that some will choose to hide. But to the Tim Hardaways of the world, they’re the ones betrayed.

Scoop asks what caused Hardaway’s resentment towards gay people:

Lemme ask you this, because I’m really trying to get at where this is coming from, the way you came across on the radio, your choice of words, your anger. I’ve had people roll up on me and say that something must have happened to you in your life to make you feel the way that you do about gays. Now I’ve been through everything that’s gone on in your life with your family—the substance abuse, the alcoholism, you riding the CTA [Chicago public transportation] at 8 years old, surviving Altgeld Gardens, all of that. But did anything happen to you? Was there any homosexual experience that triggered any of your resentment toward gay people that happened when you were young that none of us knows about?

When we was growing up Scoop, if we saw gay people or whatever, we ran across the street. We got away from them. Our parents, our friends, our families knew that that wasn’t right. We didn’t want to be around that and they definitely didn’t want us kids around it. And it’s not that they hated gay people, they just felt they it wasn’t right. Let them do what they want to do. And that was my experience when I was growing up. Not acknowledging them. Now did something happen to me? No. But I did have a friend that something happened to him in a Catholic school, but that is another can of worms that it’s not my place to open because it’s not my life. But to answer your question, “No.” Nothing happened to me. I just don’t condone [being gay]. When I see gay people holding hands or kissing in the streets, I just don’t think that’s right.

Is there some religious factor behind your thinking or is this just your belief?

Just my belief.

The self-serving (and I suspect, false) allusion to “a friend” in Catholic school aside, he’s telling it like it is. He just believes it. He was taught it. He grew up in it. He had no idea his statements would cause a stir. He had no reason to rethink it. Now he does. And maybe he will.

Even if he doesn’t the discussion is out there. Some (my brother) will be pushed deeper into their beliefs by all the attention. Others will begin to question their assumptions. Meanwhile, we should all thank Hardaway; John Amaechi’s book will enjoy the kind of sales it could hardly have without him.