Last Sunday morning, the sunshine felt like...

Local hero Clevenger (45) gets
 local pie as reward

This past Saturday, it was rainy and stormy around our town, so it was a good day to handle some home chores.  I cleaned my bathroom, cleaned up the fans that we use upstairs to move the air around, tinkered with a couple of other projects-in-progress, and did a couple of loads of laundry.  It rained early, and then it stopped long enough to allow me time outside to grill some turkey burgers for dinner, and then later it poured again, causing the Orioles to go into a rain delay in their ballgame against the Houston Astros.   But after the rain stopped, the O's came back and won the game, with local guy Steve Clevenger driving in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.  We went to bed happy and tired, but it had been a great day and we had got a lot done.

Also on that Saturday, the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League chose Michael Sam, a defensive end from the University of Missouri, to join their team this fall.  Sam thus became the first openly gay player in the NFL, which bothers a few of our benighted bigots, not a few of whom are probably overreacting to finding a certain appeal in Sam's lifestyle.

This is the purest example of what I call the "If he were a doctor" question.  For all of you who are so reviled by someone else's sexual preference, ask yourself this: If you were choking to death on a pretzel and a man came along who was a doctor and could save your life - but you knew he was also a gay man - would you still let him save your life?

Michael Sam learned to play football and now he has the chance to play the game for a living.  He will be paid by the Rams for his ability to pass rush, sack quarterbacks, and stop ballcarriers. Whom he loves at his house or wherever has nothing to do with that, although people such as some clown named Jack Burkman say that “The NFL, like most of the rest of American business, is about to learn that when you trample the Christian community and Christian values there will be a terrible financial price to pay.”

I think Jack's a little off on that.

And anyway, on Sunday, the day dawned bright and sunny and clear, and life went on.  Most of us were happy enough, and Jack will just have to live with that.