Frankly, I prefer it when narrow-minded people are loud and outspoken about their narrow- mindedness.  That way you know who they are and what they’re up to.  Often their narrow- mindedness is due to an overdose of fundamentalist religion of some kind, and their creed usually demands that they be loud and outspoken about it, which is a convenient early-warning system.  When they’ve got that Choose Life license plate and a bumper sticker that says GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, THAT SETTLES IT, I know exactly who I’m dealing with.  I know they’re not going to sign a petition supporting the gay/straight alliance in my local high school.  I know they’ re not going to donate to the Human Rights Campaign (I know—you’d think folks who’d Choose Life would support human rights, but no, it turns out—not so much).  I know if I spend my money in their place of business, my dollars may support causes and actions that are harmful to me and anybody else who doesn’t live within their narrow parameters of acceptability.  Knowing these things is an article of power allowing me to choose to spend my time, money or energy elsewhere.   For these reasons, I didn’t fully share the country’s collective outrage over former NBA player Tim Hardaway’s now-infamous “I hate gay people” commentary.  (A week after former player John Amechi came out, Hardaway had this to say to a radio talk show host:  “I hate gay people, so I let it be known…I am homophobic.  I don’t like it.  It shouldn’t be in the world, or in the United States…I don’t like it”.)  Knowing how he feels, I can now make an informed choice not to buy that Hardaway jersey or shoe, and support someone’s efforts instead whose worldviews more closely align with my own. I would have expected a more enlightened point of view from a person of color, but apparently generations of persecution and oppression do not necessarily a more enlightened person make.   Aside from the obvious contradictions in this black man’s bigotry, there was a certain morbid entertainment in watching an overblown celebrity shoot himself in the career in front of millions. As the stunned sports analysts noted, other heterosexual American athletes may share Hardaway’s views, but manage to keep them out of the media.  This is certainly true in part because people have little desire to put themselves through the wringer Hardaway is so not enjoying right now, but hopefully it also reflects a larger social evolution: that such views are truly becoming less acceptable than they once were. Bigots often live in closets themselves these days, quietly nurturing prejudices they know will cost them in the court of public opinion.   Of course, freely expressing oneself carries consequences one should be prepared to accept.   Within hours after his words sailed out over the airwaves, condemnation began raining down on Tim Hardaway’s head.  He lost at least one major endorsement deal, and the NBA promptly dropped him as a league representative.  NBA commissioner David Stern was just as unambiguous as Hardaway:  “We removed him from representing us because we didn’t think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us.” A few days later, Hardaway told a Miami television station that he hadn’t really meant what he’d said, and that he was surprised by the outcry.  “It was like, you know, I had killed somebody….I never knew that this was going to escalate that high. “I’m a good-hearted person,” he insisted. “I don’t hate gay people…I respect people.” Riiight.  So much for at least being able to respect the man’s courage in his convictions.   Like most people who discriminate against others, Hardaway’s “convictions” folded like a paper house when he learned his views weren’t as acceptable to the rest of the world as he’d assumed.  This speaks volumes about why we must continue to call people out on their statements and actions of prejudice, even while acknowledging, assuring and protecting the speakers’ right to their views.  It’s because intolerance only grows in the darkness of ignorance—throw a little light on it and it withers, revealed for what it is: a pale ghost of morality haunting an absence of knowledge.