For The Church And Wrestling, It's Nonchalantly Gay

I originally posted this at Dagblog.

One of the really amazing things about Pope Francis rebuking homophobia was how nonchalant he was about it. There was no huge press conference or media campaign with long explanations about why being gay was now okay - in fact, the Pope seemed to secede his authority on the issue altogether - "Who am I to judge?"

We have a possibly equally strange rebuke of homophobia in the form of professional wrestler Darren Young. After being asked by a reporter if "a gay wrestler could be successful in the WWE," Young simply laughed and said "Absolutely. Look at me. I'm a WWE superstar and to be honest with you, I'll tell you right now, I'm gay. And I'm happy. I'm very happy." Here's the video from The Young Turks:

Now I disagree with the Young Turks folks a little bit - he wasn't totally nonchalant. The way he said it, he certainly seemed at least pretty nervous - but not nervous enough to keep him from coming out of the closet in an off the cuff interview.

As you can see in the video, the WWE, despite being an obviously macho organization that has stereotyped gays in the past, said they completely support him and hope to help support acceptance programs in the future. So there you go! Not bad at all, right? With cases of 'roid rage, wrestlers like Mick Foley admitting to having brain damage, etc., professional wrestling - which is a form of entertainment much smarter and entertaining than it gets credit for - has much more serious problems than who gender certain individuals prefer to sleep with.

The fact that Young is not just in the WWE but black also is significant. The African American community is at least stereotypically hostile to gays though I am really not sure how true that stereotype is (just like all stereotypes).

Young in action with a fabulous hairdo:

We're quickly coming to the point where this is not an issue at all - where all consensual sexual relationships between adults remain exactly that and not a place for judgment. We have much more serious issues in this world.