When it comes to social issues, Fox News is usually the last to come around.

Fox News has come around.

Most of the network’s coverage of gays in the military has been shockingly progressive. Which it should be, because—truth be told—no arguments remain for keeping gay and lesbians from serving, and serving without fear. Truth is, our military has been overextended for years, and we need more soldiers. It shouldn’t matter if someone is gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, tall short, smart, dumb—if you wanna serve, we’ll find a spot for you.

The Far Right (the final opponents) continue to cite the ol’ “It’ll upset too many people” and “soldiers will be upset.” These are the exact same lines used when it came to integrating the armed forces.

I find the above video to be extraordinary, in that it’s an older white conservative male appearing on Fox to damn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as a failed policy.

Bravo.

By definition, bigotry means “stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.” Which, to some, seems to mean I’m a bigot for my post on Tim Tebow. However, I don’t see it that way. I am tolerant of the form of Christianity that teaches the love and beauty of lessons of Jesus Christ. Jesus, in and of himself, sets a wonderful example on how to live. The selflessness, and dying for others. Who can argue?

That said, in this country there is a very powerful genre of Christianity that crosses the line. It’s Tim Tebow’s brand—the “Believe what I say, or you’re doomed!” guide to living. It’s the brand that condemns gays to hell; that convinces people they are deviants for being, well, human; that makes sex this awful, guilt-ridden exercise and that places men in positions of power that women can never attain. It’s the brand that storms a hospital to protect a brain-dead Terry Schiavo and applauds the murder of George Tiller. The Bible is a fascinating book, and I understand people who follow its teachings. But I also strongly question those who take every … written … word … literally. Are there Orthodox Jews and Islamic Americans who act and think the same way? Certainly. But in sports, and in the general population, you rarely see it. We Jews aren’t exactly burning up the professional leagues, and the last Islamic athlete to make any sort of social/religious statement was Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. And he was flogged.

To be clear: What offends me about Tim Tebow isn’t his Christianity. It’s the lack of any reasonable doubt in the message. Whether he’s willing to admit it or not, Tim Tebow cannot know for a fact that Jesus Christ is the messiah and that an afterlife awaits. Hell, in many faiths doubt is not just accepted, but encouraged—ask questions; debate; argue; learn. But Tebow has no doubt. And he and his ilk then storm into developing countries and peddle something as fact, without the facts. They sell that Jesus will save; that your life will be happy and whole with Him; that He will provide. It’s a sales job, and an oft-convincing one. But, sadly, those being preyed upon (and make no mistake—many missionaries (and I’m not saying ALL missionaries, but many) prey on the downcast; the poor; the needy. I’ve been to multiple Third World nations; walked atop the dirt floors and inside the gnat-infested bathrooms. If someone came to your house and said, “I have the answer for all your problems—and it won’t cost a thing,” you’d buy, too.

But, at age 22, can Tim Tebow truly have the answer?

Can anyone?

PS: To be clear, this blog is my place to vent. Please don’t feel compelled to comment if you don’t want to. Someone suggested I write these things to get a response. Nothing could be further from the truth. I write because it’s a forum to do so, and I enjoy it.

PPS: The above photo was the first Google reply when I typed in “bigotry.” Frightening.

Random thoughts, having watched 95 percent of the show …

• Roberta Flack can still sing, but her plastic face doesn’t move. Literally, it does not move • Taylor Swift is great, and I’m thrilled she won Best Album because the CD rocks. But Taylor Swift with Stevie Nicks—no good • Maxwell is Marvin Gaye: 2010 • Did anyone really need to hear Bon Jovi do Livin’ On a Prayer for the 593,213,432nd time? • Hall & Oates didn’t win. Bummer. • For my money, Dead and Gone by T.I. and Justin Timberlake was the year’s best song. Won nothing, but an epic tune. • Who the f*** invited Ricky Martin? • Placido Domingo presented an award to Rihanna. She didn’t even look at him, and uttered nary a word. You’re a 21-year-old pop star who, if all the stars align, will be doing Vegas variety shows in 10 years. Show some respect to a legend • Strong, strong showing from Eminem, who remains a lyrical phenomenon • When LL Cool J is being introduced as “the star of NCIS …” well, the world has exploded. • What’s not to like about Mos Def? • Usher is wearing sunglasses indoors. Why? • Pearl Jam did a Target commercial. What the hell? • Fergie has a tremendous voice. She really does. But the Black Eyed Peas suck, and in the not-too-distant future their fans will look back and agree with me. • Beyonce absolutely, positively butchered Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know. I like B, but a pop princess can’t sing that tune. It has to be done with venomous anger. • Flipped to the Pro Bowl for 8 seconds. This game shouldn’t exist. Nobody plays hard. •

This was released today from John McCain:

In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked Congress to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. I am immensely proud of, and thankful for, every American who wears the uniform of our country, especially at a time of war, and I believe it would be a mistake to repeal the policy.

This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels. We have the best trained, best equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our armed forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.

John McCain is pathetic. Absolutely, positively pathetic. Not all that long ago, he had a chance to become president. He was a moderate Republican well known for his willingness to go against his party’s hard-liners to do what he considered to be righteous. Then, in a move that killed him, he picked Sarah Palin as his VP candidate, all but giving in to the nuts on the far right.

So here we stand now. The military stretched out. In need of more bodies. And he wants to continue a bigoted policy that denies able citizens the right to serve their country. Why? Because they are attracted to those of the same sex. That’s it—the only reason one is not allowed to openly served in the armed forces of this supposedly free and just and principled land. In 2010, there is no argument to be made against gays in the military. None. My liberal friends don’t argue it, my conservative friends don’t argue it. If you know someone who is gay, you know this policy is bulls•••.

Pathetic.

Two years ago, while promoting a book, I was a guest on the worst TV show in America, the now-defunct Hannity & Colmes. I hated myself for appearing, because I agree with absolutely nothing Sean Hannity stands for, and consider him to be a racist, sexist twerp of a man.

Anyhow, while waiting in the green room to go on, I struck up a conversation with Howard Ford, at the time best known as the failed Democratic congressional candidate from Tennessee. Ford seemed like a nice enough guy. He gave me his business card, said he was working in New York for some financial firm, would probably run for office again one day.

Well, now he’s running for senator. In New York.

Unofficially.

But officially.

Man, politicians like Ford give me the creeps. During the 2006 election in Tennessee, Ford was an anti-gay marriage, pro-gun, anti-immigrant moderate who perfectly squeezed into the suit he thought the state’s voters wanted to see. Now, however, in planning to run against Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator (and a flip-flopping clown in her own right), Ford has done a complete 180. As A.C. Kleinheider wrote in Nashville’s City Paper:

Ford asserts that he has not suddenly become pro-gun-control, gay-friendly, pro-choice, and pro-immigrant. . .

I covered Junior’s campaign for U.S. Senate against Bob Corker. In 2006, Ford wanted desperately to leave voters with the impression he abhorred gay marriage and thought it offensive to his faith. He wanted voters to believe that his few votes to restrict abortion amounted to a pro-life record. He wanted voters to believe he had no intention of making any moves against the NRA on firearms legislation. And, more than anything, he tried to get to the political right of his opponent with a fierce advocacy of clamping down on “illegals.”

Earlier this month, Ford told the New York Times that he’s seen all five New York City boroughs “by helicopter,” and that he doesn’t take the subway much because he is almost always chauffeured for his various talking-head TV appearances.

Oy.

Ford hasn’t officially announced his candidacy. But, rest assured, he’s running.

And, I hope, losing.

I love liberals. I detest frauds.

Two nights ago the wife and I went to see It’s Complicated, an utterly inane film that people over the age of 120 seem to love. The thing was so dreadful that, midway through, I wanted to stand up and scream, “FIRE!!! EVERYONE RUN OUT OR YOU’LL DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!”

But I didn’t. Because it’s not protected speech, even under the First Amendment.

I loathe Tom Coburn, Oklahoma’s smug, ignorant right-wing senator. I imagine it would give some great pleasure to call his office and say, “If you don’t start making sense, I’m going to shoot you.”

But I wouldn’t. Because it’s not protected speech, even under the First Amendment.

See, that’s the rub. The First Amendment protects free speech as well as any document the world knows, but it also possesses its own good-of-the-game clauses that limit certain genres of expression that do significantly more harm than good.

Yesterday, in a decision that you—white, black, Democrat, Republican, Yankee fan, Met fan, pet owner, Mormon, Jew, Christian, Muslim, anarchist, Oprah fan … everyone—should be mortified by, the Supreme Court overruled two vital precedents about First Amendment rights and ruled, in a heinous 5-4 decision, that the government cannot ban political spending by corporations.

Translation: Any voice you had in the process is completely, totally gone.

Ho-hum, you say. Blah blah, you utter. No. No! NO! This is not merely another boring court decision that will maybe possibly probably not impact your direct life. Nope, this decision completely changes the political landscape. For now on, corporations will absolutely, positively, without question own our candidates. OWN THEM. What? You say they’ve always been owned. Maybe—but not like this.

For example: An election is approaching. A Democratic candidate is in favor of, oh, alternative energy. ExxonMobil, obviously, is not. In the past, the corporation was limited in how much it could donate to a candidate. Now—whoooosh. ExxonMobil will spend gazillions of dollars to slam anyone standing in its path. It’ll run one ad after another after another—featuring smiling children singing happily in the tall grass until—Dun-Dun!—the rival candidate appears. Then the words start: “John Smith says he loves children. But does he? In 1987, in his term paper at Princeton, he wrote, ‘Kids annoy me.’ Kids annoy John Smith? Is this who you want running your state.” Over and over and over and over and over again. The messages will consume you and strangle you and choke the life out of the system.

No politician will ever, ever, ever answer to you again—hell, you’ll be lucky if anyone ever meets with you again—because they’ll have no need. You have $100 in your pocket? $1,000? $100,000? Big sh•t—because Target and ExxonMobil and IBM and Google and every other huge firm has billions. You have been rendered moot. No, mute. Hell, both.

A candidate says, “I believe in gay rights.”

A lobbyist says, “No you don’t.”

A candidate says, “Yes, I do.”

A lobbyist says, “Well, if you do, we will spend $10 million to make sure you lose.”

A candidate says, “No, I don’t.”

So what can we do?

I have noooooo idea.

PS: By the way, I’d looooove to know where all the Republicans screaming, “We don’t need activist judges!” are now. Hello? Anyone?

A friend of mine named Bev wrote this on my Facebook page earlier today. I couldn’t agree more …

Bush was able to ride 9/11 for a lot of that crazy legislation. And the dems were too scared to look unpatriotic. Obama has no such catastrophe and the Republicans are united in their quest to block everything he does. All of a sudden being unpatriotic is all the rage.

It’s true—being unpatriotic is the rage. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Democrats in the Senate and House made an incredibly strong show of support toward the president. Hell, one of my all-time favorite political moments was when the entire Senate—all 100 Republicans and Democrats—stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang God Bless America. Nowadays, that is unambiguously impossible. Why, in Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is being flogged by his own party for having the audacity—the nerve!—to hug the president. He might actually lose his senatorial primary to an arch-conservative opponent based upon that hug. Friggin’ scary.

I don’t think Barack Obama has had a brilliant first year, and as a liberal Democrat I’ve been disappointed by his non-movement on gay rights and shutting down Gitmo. But much of this is a political trap of the worst kind: If the Republicans (and some conservative Dems) stand in his way and try and try and try to block everything, they can then say, “Look, he’s done nothing. He’s ineffective.” As far as politics go, it’s brilliant stuff. But it’s … absolutely … positively … killing … this … country. All we do nowadays is look for the political edge—righteousness be damned. Heaven forbid a Republican support anti-global warming measures or oppose assault rifles or be pro-choice. Heaven forbid anyone hold an opinion contrary to party dogma.

And while I’m at it, why are Republicans so gleeful? Why are they so thrilled to point out any Obama flaw? Aren’t we united as one country? Aren’t we in this together? Hell, weren’t you the ones furious over people bashing Bush during a time of war?

What happened to us?

What in the world happened to us?

I’m sitting in Cosi, sipping on a drink, digging through clips of the 1984 NFL pre-season. Started making a mental list—my five favorite songs of all time.

Here they are.

1. Moon River, Henry Mancini—A perfect song, from start to finish. And I’ve never even seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

2. Soup, Blinnd Melon—The most underrated tune by the most underrated band of the 1990s. Oddly, their second album was called Soup, yet the band was so hopped up on drugs that they forgot to place the title track on the disc. So Soup actually appears on their third CD, Nico.

3. Traveling Soldier, Dixie Chicks—Fantastic imagery by a fantastic trio. Behind Hall & Oates and Melon as my all-time favorite group.

4. Georgie, Hall & Oates—I once interviewed Oates and asked him about this song. He had pretty much forgotten it. Appeared on the duo’s first album, Whole Oates. I sing it to my son every night (in the tune, however, a kid dies. In my version, she sneezes).

5. Sexual Healing, Marvin Gaye—When I was a kid my mom didn’t like Brother and I listening to this. The guy had such a wonderful voice, and it’s better than ever right here.

Let’s hear your list …

There are a handful of Republicans running for governor in Alabama right now, and they are quite, well, dumb.

When recently asked, all agreed teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead a class in voluntary prayer, and almost all say the Bible should be taught. The whole mob of ‘em take the Good Book as literal fact (the entire text, not just parts).

Yet from the ashes of buffoons, one man rises. His name is James Potts, a Bibb County financial professional (not entirely sure what that means, specifically) and a member of the Alabama Cattleman’s Association since 1988. According to his website, Big Jim’s hobbies include Fishing, Tennis, Horseback Riding, Sporting Clays, Skeet, Trap, Hiking, Canoeing, Alpine Skiing, Sailing and Hunting (for gay people, I’m guessing).

Oh, and being a dolt.

Potts believes that all religions should be allowed to have displays on government property—save for Muslim. “Either you accept our way of life,” he says, “or you go back to another country that is Muslim.”

Yeah, boy! J-Potts in da house!

Sigh.

A few days ago I was speaking to a former NFL player about his old teammates. “Everything got better when the team hired a new coach,” he said. “Finally, we had someone willing to get rid of the niggers.” Later, the man added about an African-American lineman, “He was an amazing player, until he went all black on us.”

I’ve never blogged about this, but it’s a good topic. Of all the difficulties I’ve faced as a journalist, the toughest is listening—but not reacting—as people spew ideas I find utterly deplorable. The obvious example dates back 10 years, when I sat in John Rocker’s car as he damned gays to hell, ripped a black teammate as “a fat monkey” and slammed everyone from gays to Asians to Hispanics. But that was hardly an isolated occurrence. Through the years, I’ve sat stoically as people have unleashed some of the most venomous racial/sexist diatribes one can ever hear. How many times have I heard an athlete call a woman “bitch”? How many times have I heard African-Americans tagged “niggers”? How many times have gays been labeled “fags” and “queers”? Countless.

So how do I react? Honestly, I say nothing.

As much as I hate it, the job of a journalist is to listen, absorb and report. The former NFL player was actually doing me a service, by offering an unfiltered perspective of how he sees things. Sure, odds are he probably thought he was confiding in a fellow white man who shared his believes. But I didn’t lead him on, or pretend to agree with his words. I merely jotted down what he was saying and kept asking more questions. It’s my job.

I don’t like to brag (and hopefully this doesn’t come off as excessive bragging), but one of the things I think I’ve done well throughout my career is listen. Just the other day someone asked, “How do you get people to say so much?” The answer is pretty simple:

A. I listen.

B. I almost never interrupt.

C. I rarely (as in, almost never) interject my own opinions.

D. I try and understand where the person is coming from.

The NFLer is a southerner born in the 1940s. He grew up attending an all-white high school; probably played on a college team with four or five African-Americans. Racial division is all he knew and, therefore, stereotypes come easy. That doesn’t make his opinion right or righteous, but it adds a vital perspective.

Just babbling.