In Defense of Hardaway

Michael Medved sees the good side of the basketball player:

Recent comments by retired basketball star Tim ('I hate gay people') Hardaway did serious damage to his image and career but also unwittingly raised serious cultural issues about sexuality and gender. Hardaway appropriately apologized for his harsh remarks, but many (if not most) Americans no doubt share his instinctive reluctance to share showers and locker rooms with open homosexuals...

When Hardaway says 'I hate gay people' what he suggests at the deepest level is that he feels revolted by the very notion of same-sex eroticism and that he'd prefer not to face the distraction of such thoughts in the locker room or on the court. In this sense, the reluctance to team (in athletics or the military) with announced homosexuals isn't bigotry, it's common sense.

I notice that nowhere in his column does Medved criticize an expression of hatred for homosexuals. It was the harshness of its expression he objected to.