Amar’e Stoudemire‘s NBA career has been finished for some time. But embarking on the journey of discovering his Jewish heritage has allowed the former All-Star to continue his basketball career in the Israeli league for Hapoel Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, his recent comments regarding the LGBTQ community are bound to bring bad publicity. Evidently, reporters from the Israeli news outlet Walla Sports asked a bunch of players, on camera, how they’d react to having an openly-gay teammate. Most said they’d be fine with it, but Stoudemire’s response was unapologetically homophobic.
Stoudemire appeared to be smirking when he said it, so it’s at least somewhat plausible that he was being ironic. But that’s likely not the case, because when the reporter followed up with him about whether he was serious, he responded by saying “there’s always a truth within a joke.”
Complicating matters further is his history of using homophobic language. Stoudemire once used a gay slur back in 2012 when responding to a fan on Twitter and was subsequently fined $50,000. He later issued a direct apology to the fan in question. The NBA has long had a strict no-tolerance policy when it comes to anti-gay rhetoric, but it remains to be seen what sort of consequences might be handed down from the Israeli league that currently employs him.
(Via Vocativ.com)
