I totally agree with you. I believe there can be no true tolerance without loss of meaning, because that means nobody stands up for anything anymore.
Homosexuals are a big deal in sports because atheletes are very close to their teammates. I am a woman and I relate to my girlfriends differently than my guy friends. That's just the way it is, no matter how the society tries to sell you the idea that men are women are the same(?!) Male bonding is a big part of men's sports and if you can't relate to a man as a man in that environment then there are issues. It has nothing to do with tolerance.
Say, if you are a woman, would you go in to the shower with a man who promise you he will have no lustful thoughts?
You do realize that as a woman, men most likely have lustful thoughts of you even if you are just walking down the street, right?
No matter what you do, nobody can control other's thoughts. What difference does it make what thoughts other people have of you, as long as those aren't acted on in a way that violates someone's personal rights?
As far as male bonding in sports or any other medium, a person's sexual orentation shouldn't be a factor, although I understand that it could be. However, in a same-sex forced group atmosphere, I think people would be surprised at how accepting people can be as long as they respect each other.
An example, I was in a fraternity when I was in college. Obviously, any time you have a group of 60 or so people you are going to have divergent feelings, opinions, tastes, etc. Regardless, to be a succesful fraternity, whether in intramural sports, campus activities, or whatever, you need to have a certain amount of male bonding. You obviously have cliques and what not, and you also have groups of people that may not see eye to eye, yet you all still have to work together and spend a lot of time together. Also, I would argue that a fraternity of a bunch of guys between the age of 18-24, is about as tosterone-charged of an environment as you will find anywhere, at least I know my fraternity was.
Anyway, we had a guy that was as all-american as they get. One of the best atheletes in the greek system, great student, was a leader to the nth degree (both in the fraternity and on campus). He was always able to do great things in the fraternity, and was as respected as anyone that ever stepped foot in the house. He wasn't in my immeadiate close group of friends in the house, but he was among the group of us that did a lot together even when we didn;t have to. We all partied all the time, played sports all the time, played drinking games all the time, everything. He was what anyone would consider a man's man.
His last year in, he came out to some of us. Now, I am not going to lie, there were some people that distanced themselves from him. Also, once it came out, the news spread through our fraterninty (and greek community as whole) pretty quickly. Obviously those that have issues towards differing lifestyles were a-holes about it from time to time. However, on a whole, he was accepted because of what a great guy he was. I was especially surprised, because I know for a fact that he changed a lot of opinions of people that were very homophobic.
I think a lot of people in my fraternity (me included) learned that just because a guy happens to be gay, doesn't make him less of a man. I know through stereotypes, a lot of people believe that all gay people are like Jack McFarland from Will & Grace or Big Gay Al from South Park. Pleasantly enough though, I have found that people that may have at one time been ignorant, can have their opinions changed once they have actual life experience from which to draw. I highly doubt that anyone that was in my fraternity at the time, didn't have some sort of new perspective on what constitutes a 'gay' person.
More on subject, if someone in the NBA that was a star came out, and most people in the league knew that guy was better than them on the court, do you really think there would be people thinking they couldn't relate to him as a man?
