Among all the praise that Jason Collins has gotten for being the first active player in one of the four major American professional team sports to announce that he is gay, there were a few famous athletes, head coaches and writers that didn’t really support him, including Mike Wallace, Larry Johnson, Mark Jackson and Chris Broussard.

It’s easy to find the overwhelming supportive reaction from around the NBA and other fields to Collins, a Washington Wizards player hitting free agency, declaring out in the open he is homosexual, with Kobe Bryant, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Dwyane Wade among the first to offer a warm word or two about his courageous act, but among those, there are the people who weren’t too fond of the idea.

Chris Broussard, who writes for ESPN, had one of the strongest responses to the ordeal – Personally I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin.

If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be. I think that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the Bible would characterize them as a Christian.

Mike Wallace of the Miami Dolphins also had to share his discontent with the new situation, although after a certain backlash, he erased his tweets and announced that he isn’t coming out against Collins, simply not understating it. You be the judge.

All these beautiful women in the world and guys wanna mess with other guys. I’m not bashing anybody don’t have anything against anyone I just don’t understand it,” he tweeted a few minutes later.

Larry Johnson, the current basketball and business operations representative for the Knicks, tweeted: I don’t Jason Collins personally but he seems like a great guy. Me personally gay men in the locked room would make me uncomfortable.

And there was Mark Jackson, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, who was blurry enough in his response to not make it sound like he’s actually against Collins, but reading a bit deeper into his meaning, and it’s quite clear that he is.

I will say this. We live in a country allows you to be whoever you want to be. As a Christian man, I serve a God that gives you free will to be who you want to be. As a Christian man, I have beliefs of what’s right and what’s wrong. That being said, I know Jason Collins, I know his family, and am certainly praying for them at this
time.