Better to be thought a fool and a bigot than to be Curt Schilling and remove all doubt

Memo to Curt Schilling: You can delete it from your Facebook page, but that doesn’t mean it’s erased from the Internet. Schilling, the ESPN baseball analyst and former major league pitcher, posted a surprisingly offensive meme on his Facebook page Monday, mocking the transgender community in general, and the lack of access to public bathroom facilities in particular…. It’s a surprising bout of bigotry for Schilling, who was suspended by ESPN in August for posting intolerant comments comparing Muslims to Nazis. After that incident, Schilling claimed he’d changed and acknowledged on Twitter, “this was a bad decision in every way on my part.”…. Last month, Schilling opined on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, saying she should “be buried under a jail somewhere” because she used a private email server for government business as secretary of state.

A very wise man once told me that once can be considered a mistake and twice a coincidence, but a third time demonstrates a pattern of behavior. In the case of former major league pitcher Curt Schilling, now an analyst for ESPN (though for how much longer remains to be seen), the pattern of bigotry and hatefulness is unmistakable. His latest adventure in crude and insulting behavior was sharing a highly offensive Facebook post belittling transgender individuals. It’s not Schilling’s first foray into gratuitously insulting behavior usually directed at those left-of-center types who offend his tender sensibilities regarding the way he believes things ought to be.

I can’t begin to divine what Schilling may have been thinking…assuming that there was even any actual, honest-to-God thought process taking place. He doesn’t have to agree with anything about the LGBT community, but if he’s going to voice an opinion, especially one displaying such a Neanderthal-like understanding, he can’t claim surprise when he gets some blowback.

Schilling’s certainly free to his opinion…but that doesn’t mean others don’t have the right to react to it, especially when it’s something that seems so pointless and gratuitously offensive. He should at least have the decency to own up to his bigotry, instead of going on the offensive against those calling him out for it. Show some class, eh? Of course, if Schilling had any, I wouldn’t be writing about this, would I?

You may not agree with the lifestyle or sexuality of another. You don’t have to…but neither do you get to gratuitously and grossly insult those whose choices you abhor without expectation of a response. Schilling seems not to recognize that free speech is a two-way street…as is respect.