Collin's admission hopefully the first of many

Jason Collins is a professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association, and you've probably never heard of him.

Until today.

Collins did what no other active professional athlete has ever done in American sports today, when he came out to the world and announced that he is homosexual. Immediately, the sports world was abuzz with the information, with some athletes and coaches voicing strong messages of support while others posted dissent and negative messages.

Honestly, I'm ecstatic that this happened, and there's several reasons why. I recently went to go see "42" in theaters, which if you aren't aware, details the life of Jackie Robinson, the first African American player to break the color barrier from the black baseball into the Major Leagues. Now, apart from some Hollywood embellishment, the movie had a lot to say. Robinson moved to a league where many people hated him, hated what he represented, even amongst his own teammates.

This strikes a chord given the comments from San Francisco 49er's cornerback Chris Culliver before this years Super Bowl, in which he said

"No, we don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do...Can't be with that sweet stuff. Nah...can't be....in the locker room man. Nah"

Despite such an eloquently stated opinion, Culliver eventually realized his error and retracted his statements, but the question stands. How many current players feel the same way as Culliver?

I'm a Christian. I'm also a supporter of equality for all, including fair treatment of those in the gay community. Color is no longer a barrier in professional sports, thanks to the heroics of Jackie Robinson and those who followed and supported him. The new barrier in sports is the stigma of sexuality. Professional athletes are in a sense barred from their right to love members of the same sex. They are encouraged to wait until after they retire to "come out". This is because some players are afraid to change in the locker room in front of a gay male, or a lesbian female. It is because they are ignorant enough to believe that being gay makes you any less of a human being. It is because to them, the phrase "love your neighbor as you love thyself" only pertains to their straight neighbors.

To them, and to anyone who feels like someones sexual orientation discounts them from playing professional sports or that it warrants hateful names and demeaning comments  then to those people I would say GROW UP. This isn't 1910, it is time to move past the religious bias in sports and allow fair and equal competition amongst those who have earned it.

Jason Collins and anyone else who follows in his footsteps should be commended and respected for taking those first few scary steps into a world where acceptance is not a given. As an individual who has never been harassed for my sexual orientation, I respect Collins and hope that this action will eradicate the social bias towards the "out professional (or amateur) athlete.