Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck would have no issue with gay teammate

I noticed the news of Hasselbeck's comments on a  Think Progress post linking to an Outsports story.  My first thought was, "What a welcome contrast to the fight we just faced in the Legislature and to some of the Republican county party resolutions that came out last week!"

Are you ready for some equality with that football?

It's a shame that the very thought of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in the workplace should still be an issue, but it is for some people, even though working for a living and hiring the best person for the job should be old school conservative values. 

To be fair, Hasselbeck wasn't be directly political.  But the fact that he wasn't being political just highlights the contrast with those who are trying to demonize our presence in the workplace in the political sphere. 

Here's a sample from the Outsports piece:

“The quarterback room conversation was that, ‘Hey, has anybody played with an openly gay teammate?’ And nobody had,” Hasselbeck told Outsports. “And it’s kind of irrelevant to the discussion in terms of how we would view that person as a teammate or how we would view that person as a friend, or how we would trust that person.”

Hasselbeck, who showed a sharp wit and a great sense of humor in the interview, said the oft-cited issue of a gay teammate in the locker room did come up with the other Titans quarterbacks.

“The question did come up, well, what about in the shower? And those are tricky, delicate issues. But so are female reporters in the locker room. There’s rarely a clear, black and white answer on a lot of tricky issues. But I think, at least for the three quarterbacks in our room, it was kind of a shrug, yeah, so what?”

Compared to the kinds of bizarre conversations that have been popping up in Tennessee about minorities in the workplace, "yeah, so what?" is a welcome change.  Let's hope his comments open some eyes.

Why is Young apologizing?

Titans QB Vince Young is apologizing for those famous photos of him having a good time posted at TMZ. Is it the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt or that he was drinking alcohol because those are the two things that keep getting mentioned every time the photos come up? There doesn't seem to be any problem with either in these Super Bowl commercials posted at the NFL's site.

Children are impressionable, after all. If they see a hazy, amateur camera phone photo of a player actually enjoying himself, then they will surely forget all the slick, expensive ads full of flesh and alcohol produced by marketing professionals directly targeting football fans of all ages.

Vince Young's night of blowing off a little steam has been crashed by the strange politics of alcohol and "What about the children?" in this country.