If you just listen to what Torii Hunter says, you might think he matched the stereotype of a white conservative. Well, he is part of the 1%.
Update: Hunter says he was misquoted. The reporter says he has a recording. Time to post the MP3.
If you just listen to what Torii Hunter says, you might think he matched the stereotype of a white conservative. Well, he is part of the 1%.
Update: Hunter says he was misquoted. The reporter says he has a recording. Time to post the MP3.
What a tool! Everyone knows that invisible creatures don’t care who you sleep with, same gender, different gender, every gender. The ghost does not care because it’s a ghost and it’s a non-judging ghost.
I’d like to know Torii’s “thoughts” on slavery, I mean the bible seems to support it…maybe he does too.
I always wondered what that extra ‘i’ in Torii’s name meant – I just didn’t think it was idiot.
Torii should spend more time ensuring his son makes better decisions. Or does his son take lessons from father ghost too?
Before everyone starts piling on Torii Hunter for being a bigot, let’s go back to the quote:
“For me, as a Christian … I will be uncomfortable because in all my teachings and all my learning, biblically, it’s not right,” he said. “It will be difficult and uncomfortable.”
Is Hunter a soul-less, homo-hating bigot, or is he just being honest? He didn’t say that the (hypothetical) gay teammate should keep it to himself. He didn’t suggest that the teammate ought to look to God for salvation, or pray the gay away or any other such nonsense. He basically said that it would be uncomfortable and would take some getting used to.
To me, this is actually pretty refreshing. Prejudice is derived from deep seeded social taboos that are cultural, prevalent and don’t just go away in a poof of enlightenment. It’s a process. Thankfully, we’re in the process of becoming enlightened as a culture and the end result will be that we’re more accepting of each other, get along better, and can be ourselves. But I don’t think that it does much good for people like T.Hunter, who presumably has some hangups about homosexuality that he’s working to get over, to just pretend like they’re not there. Now, that doesn’t give him or anyone else carte blanche to be a bigot, but people treating him like they’re better than him because they have an easier time dealing with a new reality (or never had to transition to it in the first place) strikes me as short-sighted and counter productive.
I’m sorry, you can’t hide behind your “refreshing” and bigoted thoughts because they come from a religious book. Bigoted is bigoted, bottom line.
There are a lot of things in the bible that don’t make us better human beings, and ultimately our only religion should be progressing humanity. Not making others feel uncomfortable because they were born liking someone of the same sex.
The days of saying my religion doesn’t agree with it are over. It’s time we man up and make big people decisions.
WeWanttheFunk » An excellent point. If this quote were in isolation, I’d tend to agree with you more. Given that this is his third insensitive quote, Torii should at least learn to say no comment once in a while.
Dimelo – Nobody is hiding behind anything. There’s a large portion of American culture who have been raised in traditions that aren’t accepting of homosexuals. Largely, those traditions are religious. Nobody’s saying that makes it OK, but I am saying that it’s not something that’s just going to vanish because it’s deemed unacceptable. It’s been engrained for a good 2000 years. It stands to reason that it won’t change overnight.
Furthermore, the attitude that you’re exhibiting is problematic. A great deal of people are having to adjust their perception to a more modern time. Telling them all that they’re hatemongers if they don’t shut the hell up and get along, is the exact sort of thing that invites backlash from the people who are in need of education and modernization. It’s counterproductive, ugly, and dumb.
David – I’m letting him off on the Japanese Pitcher thing. There were similarities to pitchers coming over from Japan at the time he said it. The “Black Latinos aren’t Black” thing definitely sounds racist to me, but as a white male I don’t feel qualified to comment on whether or not it actually IS racist.
Huh, I want to agree both with Dimelo and WeWant.
Torii’s remarks *can* be given a very charitable construction, in which he’s just admitting that he (like everyone else) has certain visceral prejudices. But I don’t read it that way. I don’t think he’d mention the bible if that’s what he meant.
But if someone said, “Interracial marriage makes me really uncomfortable because it goes against biblical teachings”, that would just be a racist hiding behind the bible. And this is really no different. So when push comes to shove, I’m with Dimelo on this.
If someone said, “Interracial marriage makes me really uncomfortable because it goes against my upbringing and biblical teachings,” and they said it in 1960 they’d have a whole lot more people on their side. Gradually, as time went on, popular opinion would change and they would (hopefully) get over their hang-ups.
The key, for me, is the intention. If this hypothetical person was intent on keeping interracial couples from being together, then they’re a straight-up bigot. If they were trying to come around to an emerging reality, then I think they’re entitled to comment on the change. Torii isn’t retracting the quote or calling it a fabrication, he’s saying it was taken out of context and re-iterating that he’s tolerant of all. Absent any quote expressing actual intolerance of homosexuals, I’m inclined to believe that he’s actually trying pretty hard here.
And, finally, Torii Hunter doesn’t get to hide behind his religion, and neither does anyone else. I really hope that the days of “It’s in the Bible” being a reason for anything are a long way behind us.
*If someone said, “Interracial marriage makes me really uncomfortable because it goes against my upbringing and biblical teachings,” and they said it in 1960 they’d have a whole lot more people on their side.*
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Yeah, they would have a lot more people on their side. But they’d still be a racist hiding behind the bible. There were a lot of those in 1960, so there would be a lot of them on that side…
I don’t disagree, but I think you’re missing my point.
Interracial marriage, homosexuality, trans-gendered people and many other things eventually become socially acceptable quite literally: they become things that society accepts. This takes time. It takes the breaking of conventions. It is done through healthy discussion of those conventions, followed by a realization that they have become out-dated and often a reflection on the exact nature of their obsolescence.
I really don’t think that shouting “BIGOT!” at people who were plain raised to be that way is going to make them turn around and go “Omigod! You’re right!”. Unless maybe they’re just trying to shut you up.