Sports analyst Chris Broussard, who
mainly covers the NBA for ESPN, on Monday criticized Jason Collins
after he came out gay.
In a cover story for Sports
Illustrated, Collins, a 34-year-old 12-year NBA veteran and
current free agent, became the U.S.'s first openly gay professional
athlete.
(Related: NBA's
Jason Collins: First openly gay professional athlete.)
Brousssard, 44, made his comments
during an appearance on ESPN's Outside
The Lines.
“Personally, I don’t believe that
you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly, like
premarital sex between heterosexuals,” Broussard
said. “If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then
the Bible says you know them by their fruits. It says that, you know,
that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin,
whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, whatever it may be, I
believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus
Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian
because I don’t think the Bible would characterize them as a
Christian.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
Openly gay colleague LZ Granderson, who
also appeared on the program, reacted strongly to the comments,
saying, “I really don't need Chris or anyone else telling me if I'm
a Christian, because Jesus tells me I am.”