IGF CultureWatch

A favorite professor of mine once spoke of the small comforts a teacher must snatch amid the stream of indifferent students, taking his satisfaction from the occasional student "stealing a spoon." Likewise, our efforts toward gay equality are wasted unless they take root in non-gay allies. Today I celebrate an ally from one of the most homophobic industries in America, the National Basketball Association. If hope lives there, it is a sturdy creature. The man who stole the spoon? Former power forward Charles Barkley, short at just under 6 feet 5 inches.

The Round Mound of Rebound is now a successful television commentator for the sport in which he is a Hall of Famer, a onetime Most Valuable Player, and an Olympic gold medalist. The 44-year-old's most recent achievement, though, was beating 67-year-old referee Dick Bavetta in a footrace on All-Star Saturday amid speculation that his training consisted of working the Vegas buffet lines. His weight has been the subject of jokes ever since he was discovered by an Auburn University scout who described "a fat guy ... who can play like the wind."

Barkley has authored a couple of books with sportswriter Michael Wilbon, talks seriously about running for governor of Alabama, and is outspoken on social and political issues. He has a certain rough-hewn eloquence, as when he phoned a politician whom he was considering supporting and said, "You aren't going to be talking no bullshit against gay people."

Sir Charles supports the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples, and is tired of politicians stoking fears of gay people to divide the public and win votes. When former player John Amaechi came out as gay, Barkley said, "I played with gay guys. I got gay friends. Only God can judge other people. I don't care if a person is gay or not. Any jock who thinks he's never played with a gay guy is sadly mistaken. Any team you've been on at some point in your life you have played with a gay guy." Tell it, brother.

In an interview last year with sportscaster Chris Meyers, he said about same-sex couples, "I think if they want to get married, God bless them. Gay marriage is probably one percent of the population, so it's not like it's going to be an epidemic." That sounds a bit patronizing, but it is significant when a star of Barkley's stature, far more famous than Amaechi, is so cool about a subject that evinces hostility from so many of his peers.

Barkley's confrontational style got him into trouble during his NBA career, as when, after being taunted with racial epithets, he spat at a heckler, accidentally hitting a little girl; or when he broke a man's nose during a post-game fight; or when he threw a man through a plate-glass window for hitting him with a glass of ice. Regretting the spitting incident (after which he became friends with the girl and her family), he said it "taught me that I was getting way too intense during the game. It let me know I wanted to win way too bad. I had to calm down ... Instead of playing the game the right way and respecting the game, I only thought about winning."

Barkley famously said in an old Nike spot: "I am not a role model. I'm not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids." That conservative message was accompanied by compelling footage of Barkley's athletic prowess. There was something paradoxical about it: if he wasn't a role model, why was his adorable masculine self giving us advice?

Somehow, his charm always comes through. In a foreword for a book by Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly in 2000, Barkley wrote, "Of all the people in sports I'd like to throw through a plate glass window, Reilly's not one of them. It's a shame though, skinny white boy looks real aerodynamic."

Asked by The New Republic about people who criticize Barack Obama "for not being black enough," Barkley sounded like a more profane Bill Cosby: "Well, that's because black people are fucked up. One of the reasons that black people are not going to be successful is because of other black people. We tell black kids that if they make good grades, they are acting white. If they speak well, we tell them that they are acting white. We have a lot of demons in our own closet - in our own family - that we have to address."

In a TravelGolf.com interview last year, he said, "I was a Republican until they lost their minds." He said, "What do the Republicans run on? Against gay marriage and for a war that makes no sense. A war that was based on faulty intelligence. That's all they ever talk about. That and immigration. Another discriminatory argument for political gain." Not that he was thrilled with Democrats, who he said "have wasted the last two years going after this guy and two years from another election, we don't have a frontrunner or a plan." As he told the Associated Press earlier this year, "The Republicans are full of it. The Democrats are a little less full of it."

There you have some good, plain American wisdom. Sir Charles, here's a big wet smooch.