NBA’s Jason Collins Comes Out as Gay
Last Summer NBA player Jason Collins was considering joining his old Stanford roommate, U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III at Boston’s gay pride parade. In the end he decided against it as he wanted to keep his secret safe.
Jason Collins has become the first player in the US’s four major sports leagues to come out as homosexual
Collins was worried what his teammates, opponents, fans and the rest of the world might think if he came out about his sexuality.
Collins says that the Boston Marathon bombing two weeks ago “reinforced the notion that I shouldn’t wait for the circumstances of my coming out to be perfect. Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully?”
So Collins said that after he had endured “years of misery and gone to enormous lengths to live a lie” he decided to become the first active player in one of the US’ four major pro sports leagues to come out. Last Monday he wrote an article for Sports Illustrated website which began “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”
Now Collins is planning to join Kennedy on June 8th for Boston’s gay pride parade. Kennedy said that he’s never known Collins “to look for publicity, or to look for the spotlight, but given that no one else would raise their hand, I knew he would do it.”
