Says ESPN, firing Schilling for sharing something on Facebook that mocked a man masquerading as transgender in the context of calling out for more tolerance of different opinions on the subject of sex-segregated bathroom:
The post showed an overweight man wearing a wig and women’s clothing with parts of the T-shirt cut out to expose his breasts. It says: “LET HIM IN! to the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving racist bigot who needs to die.”
Schilling didn't write that. He wrote this response to it:
“A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic."
Here's Schilling's blog post on the controversy.
You frauds out there ranting and screaming about my ‘opinions’ (even if it isn’t) and comments are screaming for “tolerance” and “acceptance” while you refuse to do and be either....
Posts
62 comments:
#LoveWins!
Only a bigot, or perhaps a rape survivor would be offended by the display of another woman's penis.
Its become clear the people who championed acceptance and tolerance in the past, have turned blindly away. They didn't really want that, they wanted power, they don't care about tolerance, not one bit.
When you have certain jobs where your public image will reflect on your employers--as is clearly the case here for Schilling--you have to steer clear of unnecessary controversy. Obviously ESPN did not want a sports analyst wading into some political minefield, and if he's too dumb to realize that it's hard to feel sorry for him.
At the very least, he should have run this by them first if he was so eager to share his thoughts on the issue, or ensure he had that leeway in his contract.
He should change his avatar so it's SnapChattedly Bob Marleyized.
If he wants to have a job as an ESPN personality, then he should keep his personal opinions out of the public eye.
That's part of the package. This has nothing to do with correctness and is all about he devalued the product he sells.
"Obviously ESPN did not want a sports analyst wading into some political minefield [with the wrong opinions]"
Obviously they don't mind if sports analysts wade into acceptable approaches to political minefields. Those who place the mines do not want their own people to walk into the minefields meant for the opposition.
...blood coming out of his wherever
"screaming for “tolerance” and “acceptance” while you refuse to do and be either." Pretty much.
@SteveR: "They didn't really want that, they wanted power, they don't care about tolerance, not one bit." Pretty much.
@Brando: "Obviously ESPN did not want a sports analyst wading into some political minefield" Depends on the minefield and the direction of the wading.
At the risk of sounding like Ann "I can't believe" Althouse, it still seems remarkable that acceptance of (particularly non-transitioned) trannies in opposite-gender bathrooms should have become the cutting edge of Prog politics.
Longing for a non-political sports network run by grown ups. ESPN is none of that.
Can I just watch my baseball??
This is a twisted Klein bottle of an issue. Everyone wants to excrete in a "safe" space and for some reason that's the women's bathroom for most people. But when some people use that bathroom it makes other users of that bathroom feel unsafe. Can you say the feelings of those other's is wrong? I mean, the trans people aren't using the Men's bathroom because they feel unsafe there. Can one person's feelings of being unsafe trump another person's feelings?
Personally, I'm fascinated by this whole argument. It's structured around the idea that strange men are scary and potentially violent and strange women are sweet and accepting. There is so much inherent sexism and there are so many patriarchal assumptions entailed in this vision of "safe" restrooms. No wonder the TERFs were fighting against trans-inclusion for years.
At the risk of sounding like Ann "I can't believe" Althouse, it still seems remarkable that acceptance of (particularly non-transitioned) trannies in opposite-gender bathrooms should have become the cutting edge of Prog politics.
And that the same people who've spent the past six years pissing and moaning about Citizens United are content to have ESPN and Disney decide this one. Not that there's no precedent. ("Obviously the studio bosses did not want a screenwriter wading into the Communist Party.")
It's never enough. It never will be enough. The end game here is getting rid of anyone who disagrees. Firing is the least offense. Eventually we will wish for the day that the worst thing they did to us was fire us from our jobs.
If you disagree, you're evil. A hater. A person no worthy of life. Eventually this will lead to actions to take care of those intolerant, racist, homophobic bigots on the right. Something that should have been done a long time ago.
Because evil men need to use the girls bathroom, dontcha know?
Live by the sword, die by the sword. I'm sure Schilling will make his shillings by shilling somewhere else.
Hopefully this doesn't keep him out of the Hall of Fame. The baseball writers group is pretty lame collection so they'll probably hold his personal opinions against him.
Still love when someone asked Schilling after A-Rod knocked the ball out of his glove running to first in the 2004 ALCS if it was a "bush league play" and Schilling said it was "Kerry League."
Since it appears that Mr. Schilling's comments were made either in a Facebook post or on (presumably his own)blog, and NOT on an ESPN program or other media outlet, ESPN's action goes against the broad value of free speech (not the narrower constitutional doctrine) that Professor Althouse usually champions.
The sense one gets from the comments is that problems occur when people who present as male but identify as female use restrooms reserved for women. There doesn't seem to be much controversy about people who identify as male, but present as female using ladies rooms, or about people who identify as male but present as female using men's rooms.
ESPN is so gay.
It's interesting to see how quickly organizations like ESPN bow and scrape to cater to what is, at best, 0.3% of the populace. I wonder what percentage of ESPN's viewing audience is transgender? Quite likely, even less than 0.3%.
"Obviously ESPN did not want a sports analyst wading into some political minefield"
Bull Shit. They didn't want him wading in an a non-progressive side. Pushing #leanin and disparaging guys wouldn't have gotten him fired.
Talking about Curt Schilling and sound judgement, he ran a game company to the ground and left the taxpayers of Rhode Island with the bill.
"
On May 24, the entire 38 Studios staff was laid off via e-mail. They hadn’t been paid since the end of the previous month, but their problems were just beginning. In short order, their healthcare disappeared and their 401(k)s were frozen. Then, MoveTrek Mobility — a company 38 Studios hired during the relocation to Providence to buy and resell employees’ Massachusetts homes — notified seven people that, because it had not yet sold their houses, they were potentially responsible for their old mortgages. And Atlas Van Lines alerted some individuals that they were on the hook for bills that management hadn’t paid.
Thom Ang is one of those people suddenly stuck with his old mortgage. With two young kids, no salary, rent due on his Rhode Island home, and now a mortgage in Massachusetts to pay, he’s afraid his credit is about to be ruined. “I wasn’t even aware that this could or would happen,” he says, “and then having it affect where I could possibly live and where I could possibly work?”
"
As a Sox fan, he has done enough dumb shit to make me forget the bloody sock and World series win.
Incentives in action. ESPN knows left wing activists will make good on their protest threats and the media will keep the story alive forever. So their interests are protected. Meanwhile ESPN will never fire anyone for a left wing position.
Charles Barkely said on air [probably TNT, not ESPN] you have to be an idiot to be a Republican. Not only was he not disciplined the media barely covered it.
The left has created a society where being a good citizen means being a sucker.
Rick just saved me a bit of typing. Thank you, kind sir.
Mark said...
If he wants to have a job as an ESPN personality, then he should keep his personal opinions out of the public eye.
That's part of the package. This has nothing to do with correctness and is all about he devalued the product he sells.
Apparently not for Barkely. Maybe some people are more equal than others.
Schilling is right. Human sex is binary and exclusively determined by chromosomes. CNN has demonstrated an "="-level bigotry in addressing the transgender/homosexual, transgender/crossover, etc. dysfunction, and confronting people who have not been successfully indoctrinated into the pro-choice church. The liberal orthodoxy has progressed to coercion in lockstep with its left-wing predecessors.
More PC clusterfuck that has to be thrown on the bonfire of the vanities — but quick, or we risk the whole damned Enlightenment thing that made the notion of burning heretics a nonstarter.
Fascism not about tolerance. It's about orthodoxies and the punishment of those who question the orthodoxies. Tolerance means nothing if it doesn't apply to objectionable opinions. Ergo the ESPN board room is a haven of Nazi wannabes who must die. That's my two cents.
Because it can't be McCarthyism when they do it.
If ESPN doesn't want controversial figures, why did they hire Keith Olbermann again after his jobs at both MSNBC and Current TV?
"Fascism not about tolerance. It's about orthodoxies and the punishment of those who question the orthodoxies. Tolerance means nothing if it doesn't apply to objectionable opinions."
Actually, fascists were always committed to enforcing moral standards that were based on very rigid views of sexual identity, family life, and social conformity (In the case of the Nazis - race and ethnicity). The history of LGBT persecution under fascist or fascist light dictatorships makes that plain.
Schilling is free to air his opinions on any forum. In choosing not to associate themselves with Schilling, ESPN made a business decision that is in no way fascistic. Companies do that all the time don't they?
WaPo story on Schilling has a headline describing him as being "radicalized."
This is how the Left wins. Opponents are described as being: extreme, radical, dangerous and haters. That narrative works down the food chain. It works.
As I predicted would happen once the pro-sodomy crowd feels they've won on gay marriage, the main focus right now of the pro-sodomy crowd is to make it illegal to fire someone for expressing pro-sodomy opinions while keeping it legal to fire someone for expressing anti-sodomy opinions. Since most people have jobs and want jobs, this is extremely contrary to freedom of speech. And since pro-sodomy types seem to be more intolerantly fond of firing people for anti-sodomy opinions than just about anybody else is intolerantly fond of firing people for moral not-job-related opinions, it would have very evil freedom-of-speech squashing consequences. And the evil would be worse because sodomy is an abominable addiction.
I think sodomy is evil, some others don't. Why should those others have more of a legal right to express their opinion without consequences than I should have?
Richard said...
If ESPN doesn't want controversial figures, why did they hire Keith Olbermann again after his jobs at both MSNBC and Current TV?
4/21/16, 1:11 PM
There it is. ESPN serves a political agenda along with their sports coverage, and Schilling's opinions are WrongThinK. No soup for you, Curt. And no All-Star game for NC....
Yes, the previous 6000 years of history are deemed "extreme" and "radical", while those upturning and altering every tradition and convention in existence are treated as middle of the road moderates.
Orwell was an optimist.
ESPN is an exclusive company where, if you don't toe the PC line, the SJWs come to get you and your are excluded.
You will respect their a thor a ta !
I hope Schilling had a good contract that allows him to co-own ESPN with his lawyer. Ms. A, do you have your summer salary covered?
ESPN inclusive? Apparently not. It' no longer includes Schilling.
Keith Olberman could not be reached for comment.
ESPN, defining intolerance in sports programing.
You will think and say what the party demands. "Nice career you got there, hate for something to happen to it."
Inclusive: adj. Pertaining to expulsion.
"ESPN is an inclusive company . . ."
But not of opinions, obviously.
Ann, Why do you say the man in the tweeted photo is "masquerading as transgendered?"
Under the new laws, would the person in the picture be legally allowed to use the women's room?
If not, why not?
The fact that Stephen A Smith still has a job with ESPN should tell you anything you need to know about ESPN.
This latest progressive fad will quietly disappear after the first time a man "masquerading as transgendered" rapes a woman in the women's restroom.
You can take political stances at ESPN (i.e. Bomani Jones) but you must take the correct ones.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#newwindow=1&q=bomani+jones+caucasian
"Birches said...
The fact that Stephen A Smith still has a job with ESPN should tell you anything you need to know about ESPN."
And while you're at it, fools like Kris Carter and Ray Lewis.
Having given up ESPN a long time ago I can't opine on what he sounded like on the baseball broadcasts. However, his regular call-in sessions on a certain Boston sports radio station are always chock full of amazing insight. His knowledge of the game from a player's perspective is fascinating. I keep hoping he'll suddenly have a slot on said radio station whose on-air talent tends to lean to the right for such a blue city and state.
It's not as if he'd supported proposition 22.
mtrobertslaw said...'This latest progressive fad will quietly disappear after the first time a man "masquerading as transgendered" rapes a woman in the women's restroom.'
No. It won't.
"Obviously ESPN did not want a sports analyst wading into some political minefield"
Another ESPN personality compared ISIS to the Tea Party. Nothing happened to him. As it happens, he is also a frequent golf partner of the President.
"Another ESPN personality compared ISIS to the Tea Party. Nothing happened to him. As it happens, he is also a frequent golf partner of the President."
Oh, they may be hypocritical--and many employers are. But I make sure any time I'm representing my employer I know their rules. I can't imagine Schilling's agent or lawyer didn't as well.
If you don't like their hypocrisy--and I don't--then boycott them. They're a crappy channel anyway.
Slightly OT, but have you all read this article in vox? I couldn't believe vox would call out their own so thoroughly.
This is just more left wing commissar-enforced orthodoxy. Free speech is something in our imagination, not real at all, unless of course it is liberal in tone and follows the party line. We may look back one day and think "Geez, all they did was fire him. Lucky devil."
In most places in Western Europe, this would be an arrestable hate-speech offense. Like climate change denier opinions might be soon. Think about that for a moment.
The way they keep on hiring, firing, and then rehiring again the psycho loon Olbermann really says all you need to know about the management at ESPN.
Like ESPN didn't know who Curt Schilling was before they signed him to a deal. Jeez.
ESPN covers sports. How many of the sports outside of the Olympics and the MMA have sports that include women who are actually men.
Does women's basketball have men in it?
And even in the cases where the sports do have transgendered competing, there is always an asterisk next to their performance and if they had any consistency they'd have to treat their performance the same way they do lance armstrongs, especially if they are winning. . So ESPN and the sports world treat women and men the exact same way that Shilling espoused. Male sports are for biological men with penises.
Hypocrites.
Apparently not for Barkely. Maybe some people are more equal than others.
Charles Barkley is not employed by ESPN.
ESPN / Disney considers themselves "inclusive"????? The last time I checked, the definition of inclusive means including everyone, even those whom the company disagrees with. The house of mouse is now controlled by small minded liberals who defend the 1st Amendment when they can profit hugely from it and throws it under the bus when wooing small but influential groups to control Disney's course. Whether or not I agree with Curt's comments is not the main point, but rather the left's thought police taking away our freedom of speech, whether insightful or dumb.
If you're a Boston Red Sox fan you can't ever forget the bloody sock win.
The only good thing is that ESPN has managed to start losing money.
EMD said...
Charles Barkley is not employed by ESPN.
As was noted. ESPN's specific hypocrisy and double standards are not particularly meaningful. The important aspects are the lessons the interactions of all our institutions reinforce. There's no doubt the lesson is that left wing activism is supported. Many ESPN personalities discuss politics personally and also lament that athletes aren't more outspoken. But if someone supports a belief the left will react to they have to go.
This is why even though I'm not a supporter of boycotts I with more people on the right were. The left will never stop enforcing a political litmus test until their supporters start paying the same price the left exacts from the right.
Mark:
NBC didn't fire Bob Costas for his political position on guns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOi7If0zW9s
Only incorrect political positions are verboten.
Remember when liberals used to believe that the Hollywood blacklists were a bad thing?
Good times.
ESPN has been on the skids for years. This will only steepen the slope.
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