Media’s New NFL ‘Anti-Gay’ Target After Dungy: David Tyree
It’s open season. Since the media attacked former NFL coach and NBC sports analyst Tony Dungy for saying he wouldn’t have picked openly gay player Michael Sam during the draft, the sports media now has its pitchforks and torches out for anyone in the NFL guilty of thought crimes. ESPN and CBS are going after David Tyree, a former New York Giants wide receiver (who’s miraculous “helmet catch” gave the team victory in Super Bowl XLII), who was just hired as Giants Director of Player Development.
Tyree’s sin: he’s an open Christian and supporter of traditional marriage.
In a blog posted late July 22, ESPN’s Dan Graziano warned, “David Tyree hire a bad move for Giants.”
Graziano began: “I wrote about the Tony Dungy-Michael Sam controversy on Tuesday, so you know where I come down on the gay rights issue.” Yes, and now we know where he comes down on his own moral vanity: “I think these are issues of human decency, not of religion or culture or the sanctity of the NFL locker room.” (Wonder if The Most Important Sports Columnist in the World, Ever is hearing footsteps.)
He complained that Tyree’s Christianity is a “crummy reason” for being against gay marriage, or as Graziano puts it, “treating fellow human beings poorly.”
There’s no indication here that Graziano knows Tyree personally. There is no public knowledge of Tyree treating gay people poorly. It’s just an attack on someone Graziano disagrees with.
The ESPN writer went on to complain that Tyree’s “wrongheaded” and “medieval” views in a time of progress for gay rights, were not welcome and the Giants should’ve picked someone else who was less “tone-deaf.” Graziano bemoaned that now, any closeted gay players for the Giants would be afraid to come out. Oh the hypothetical horror!
CBS dug up past tweets from the player and comments he made to the National Organization for Marriage (“NOM”) as a reason the Giants should be concerned. CBS’s article wasn’t biased at all, calling NOM an “anti-gay group” and highlighting concerns from the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign.
So the Giants run the risk of alienating under 3 percent – and probably much less – by hiring a beloved former player player who believes what civilization has believed for five millennia? Dicy!
So far ESPN and CBS are the only ones going after Tyree but that could change quickly, as it did for Dungy.
While the Left loves to remind and deride Sen. McCarthy for his interrogations to weed out communist threats in the U.S., they seem to be doing the same thing themselves in trying to weed out any public figure who is not a gay rights advocate. Except this time there is no threat to national security; just a threat to leftists who want to slander and punish any person who has a viewpoint not aligned with their own.
— Kristine Marsh is Staff Writer for MRC Culture at the Media Research Center. Follow Kristine Marsh on Twitter.
