He Loves L.A. (but not gays)

Most people expect me to blindly defend Kobe Bryant after the Laker All-Star uttered a homophobic slur at a ref caught on camera by ESPN last night. And at this point in my life I’m all out of surprises so I’ll do just that.



I can’t very well defend Kobe calling a ref a fag. It’s a hateful world but it’s also a word that gets hurled around in society daily (and probably just as often on an NBA court) without hate attached to it. Who hasn’t called their buddy a fag when he won’t go get drunk with you? That’s the ultimate hypocrisy with our society. We’ll all laugh when Bradley Cooper says “paging Dr. Faggot” in ‘The Hangover,’ but when an NBA player is caught on camera saying the same word out of frustration we’re up in arms.

Now I don’t blame Gay Rights Groups for being angry. I understand Kobe’s slip up doesn’t do much to endear him to homosexual NBA fans (there are some of those right?) and it may send the message to some of his young fans that use of such language is okay.

The Human Rights Council told TMZ.com:

"Hopefully Mr. Bryant will recognize that as a person with such fame and influence, the use of such language not only offends millions of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] people around the world, but also perpetuates a culture of discrimination and hate that all of us, most notably Mr. Bryant, should be working to eradicate."

I get why they’d be upset. I just don’t understand why the sports world throws itself into a frenzy when an upset athlete utters such a slur when he may have believed he wasn’t being filmed (as naïve as that may have been).

So let’s get Kobe a break on this one. I know his tab was almost maxed out with the rape thing but he’s had to have paid it down enough to call one ref a fag.

P.S. – I don’t think Mitchell and Cameron will be all that nice to him the next time he’s on ‘Modern Family.’