As we noted yesterday, in the post immediately below, most of the intellectual-political-culltural publications on the right have been curiously silent regarding the Tim Hardaway controversy. Interestingly, the most forthright defense of Hardaway’s position from any writer other than your intrepid correspondent has come from ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard.

Actually, Broussard’s column was posted on his ESPN blog on the very day Hardaway made his comments, before the controversy broke. Hence, Broussard defended Hardaway’s position without actually mentioning Hardaway, for the very good reason that Hardaway hadn’t made his comments yet.

Broussard opens the piece by saying that he thinks the NBA is ready for an openly homosexual player. He doesn’t believe that all players will embrace the reality by any means, but that they will "tolerate" it. He notes that most of the comments by NBA players about former NBA player John Amaechi’s disclosure of his homosexuality have been very cautious and politically correct.

This publicly welcoming attitude, however, is not what the vast majority of players, or American males in general, really feel, Broussard observed:

Go talk to guys at an open gym in your neighborhood, and lots of the comments won’t be so polite.

But America has become so politically correct — not to mention that, in my opinion, much of the media and Hollywood are promoting the idea that homosexuality is a normal lifestyle — that many players are afraid to voice their true feelings publicly.

His observation about players’ fears would be proven all too true later than day when the attack on Hardaway flared up.

Broussard then offered his own thoughts about homosexuality:

I’m a born-again, Bible-believing Christian (no, I’m not a member of the Religious Right). And I’m against homosexuality (I believe it’s a sin) and same-sex marriage.

But before you label me "homophobic," know that I’m against any type of sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. That includes heterosexual fornication (premarital sex).

Some cats in the NBA run around, sleeping with different women in every city — I don’t agree with their lifestyles.

Some players run around, cheating on their wives — I don’t agree with their lifestyles.

It’s all wrong to me and against the biblical teachings I believe in.

Does that make him intolerant? Far from it. Broussard gives examples from his own life to show what tolerance really means, regarding an amateur basketball teammate of his, nicknamed LZ:

LZ and I know where each other stand and we respect each other’s right to believe as he does.

I know he’s gay, and he knows I believe that’s a sin. I know he thinks I get my moral standards from an outdated, mistranslated book, and he knows I believe he needs to change his lifestyle. Still, we can laugh together, and play ball together.

That’s real diversity. Disagreeing but not being disagreeable.

Broussard thus goes right to the main point of this whole affair, which is that disagreeing about some issues is no longer even possible, as power will simply be arrayed against those who don’t reflect current opinions as to what constitute’s enlightened thinking:

Since Amaechi came out, I’ve read lots of columns about being "progressive." The implication — or outright assertion — is that anyone who believes homosexuality is wrong is not progressive or enlightened.

That’s where this thing becomes problematic, because those who hold to that view are saying I must change my entire belief system/religion because of your belief system.

Where’s the diversity in that?

Those folks don’t want diversity. They want everyone to agree with their "enlightened" opinion.

Broussard says that just as he does not (as he surely cannot) expect the pro-homosexuality forces to change their minds on this very basic issue, they have no right to try to force him to alter his opinion, either. That’s part of tolerance, too:

Look, I’ll accept your right to have your own belief system and to live as you please, but I’m not changing mine. Diversity is not just accepting alternatives to what has long been perceived as normal, but it’s accepting the significant number of people who hold to long-standing "traditional" beliefs as well.

Millions of Christians who follow the Bible — and Muslims who follow the Koran and Jews who follow the Torah, as well as many nonreligious Americans — believe homosexuality is wrong.

That doesn’t mean they’re unenlightened. That just means their moral code doesn’t fluctuate based on society’s ever-changing standards. As long as we’re not being violent toward one another, as long as we can be civil, everything should be fine. We don’t have to agree.

Brossard calls for simple acceptance that some people think differently from oneself, a premise that should be a given in any decent society:

I’m not trying to get into a religious or scientific discussion here, I’m just saying that some people will accept homosexuality as fine and others will not.

Some will write me off as a bigot for this article, but folks, this is real talk. Unfortunately, we can’t have real talk in America nowadays.

Whites can’t voice their real opinions — no matter how legitimate — about race for fear of being called racist, and everyone’s afraid of offending anyone. It seems the only person who can be openly criticized, or disagreed with, is the President.

How crazy is that?

Until we can honestly hear each other out — and be civil while doing so — we won’t get anywhere. One thing I hope this article does is encourage people to have frank discussions about sensitive issues such as this one.

Here’s the bottom line: If I can accept working side-by-side with a homosexual, then he/she can accept working side-by-side with someone who believes homosexuality is wrong.

If an NBA player can accept playing with a homosexual, then the homosexual must accept playing with guys who don’t agree with his lifestyle.

The reaction to Broussard’s article strongly confims my observation that the great majority of Americans today (like the great majority of people throughout human history) are very uncomfortable with homosexuality and prefer not to have it pressed into their lives, greatly wishing to be allowed to have at least a "live and let live" attitude toward it:

I received nearly 1,000 e-mails, some of them coming from as far away as Australia, Italy, France, New Zealand and Japan. And believe it or not, I read every one of them.

I had many reasons for writing the blog, one of them being my belief that I represented a viewpoint that was widely held but going largely unheard.

I figured there would be a lot of support, but also a lot of hate. I thought there would be roughly a 50-50 split.

I was wrong.

More than 90 percent of the responses I received were positive.

The responses could be broken down into three categories:

1. Those who were in complete agreement with my viewpoint. About 65 percent of the e-mails fell into this category.

2. Those who disagreed with my thinking on homosexuality but loved the overall tenor of the article. This group included several homosexuals. A
bout 25 percent of the e-mails fell into this category.

3. Those who bashed me. Less than 10 percent of the responses were like this.

Broussard’s article and the reaction to it confirm that the American elites who are trying to force open approval of homosexuality on the entire population are pushing against a very powerful and prevalent discomfort with the subject and are becoming increasingly nasty and forceful in their efforts to indoctrinate and coerce the public to accept the elites’ point of view.

It also confirms that the great majority of Americans just want to be left alone to think what they think about the subject, and that they will surely tolerate the existence of this thing they don’t like if they are allowed simply to go on with their lives without having to pretend to approve of it.

That’s not too much to ask of a civilized society.

Too bad we don’t live in one.