To no one’s surprise who has followed the “Michael Sam Story,” the improbable and ground-breaking saga about the National Football League’s first openly gay player, multiple reliable sources are reporting that NFL officials made behind-the-scenes inquires to several teams about their interest in signing Sam to their practice squad.
Why would the NFL take such extraordinary steps to ensure that Sam, who had previously been cut by the St. Louis Rams, landed on some NFL team? In a word, fear. Fear of LGBT activists who would have surely been up in arms that the history-making Co-SEC Defensive Player of the Year from Missouri had been left without a team. According to ESPN’s Peter King:
Now Sam and the NFL avoided a nightmare situation when he signed with the practice squad of the Dallas Cowboys.”
That NFL officials felt the need to reach out to clubs on behalf of Sam shows what leverage the leftist LGBT community has on just about every facet of American culture. If the National Football League, without question America’s favorite sports league (even if not its favorite pastime), can succumb to pressure that was admittedly not even yet at sea level, one can only imagine what would have happened if the LGBT activists had ramped up the pressure to mile high city levels.
All of this begs the question. What pressure did the NFL exert on teams such as the St. Louis Rams during the waning rounds of the draft? Surely League officials, starting with Roger Goodell, did not want to clean up the public relations mess that would have resulted if Sam had gone undrafted. One begins to wonder how the Rams and Jeff Fisher came to the conclusion to draft Michael Sam in the first place.
Now that the NFL was facing a second round PR mess, in rides Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones to the rescue. Of course with Jones, one can never be too sure of his motives when it comes to his on-the-field or off-the-field actions. All one can really know about Jerry Jones is that he will do what’s in his best interests, even if it means chasing down a legendary coach at the golf course to unceremoniously fire him. That’s why, to this day, I will not cheer for the Cowboys. Loved them growing up — they were America’s team — but will have no use for them until Jones is no longer the owner.
Leave it to Jerry Jones to set bad precedent. Did Michael Sam deserve a spot on Dallas’ practice squad? Maybe. But, then again, maybe not. We might never know for sure, but one thing we do know is that sexual politics is alive and well in the NFL. Most football fans, myself included, do not want to let a player’s sexual orientation affect whether or not we cheer for him or for his team. As long as he plays well and makes the team on his football merits, then all will be well.
But, when a football player — wittingly or unwittingly — becomes a pawn in the radical gay rights agenda in America, he should not be surprised when his support evaporates. It will evaporate from the average football fan. It will evaporate from his fellow players and coaches. And, when the LGBT community has finished using Michael Sam for their own political agenda, their support for him will evaporate as well. And, the Michael Sam Story will not have the happy ending — in football or in life — that everyone was hoping and cheering for.
The frog is in the kettle. The American church no longer scares the devil when it gets up in the morning. Once a counterculture to the world, the church used to hinder moral decay … it is now a subculture of the world in far too many places. You many not be cheering for the Cowboys, but the stands will be full of Christians who will. Apostasy is the age we live in.