John Rocker: pro gay-marriage, pro-choice

Former Braves’ closer John Rocker was made infamous when he went on a xenophobic rant in Jeff Pearlman’s now-immortal SI profile way back when. And in recent years he’s popped up here and there to say something kinda crazy and reactionary.

Now he’s a political commentator for World Net Daily, where he offers columns about how immigrants should speak English and how big government is gonna get you. But even if I don’t share his views there, I’ll give the guy credit for philosophical consistency. He doesn’t just believe that government should stay out of business and stuff. He believes it should stay out of the bedroom and the home as well.

Here he is talking to Politico on gay marriage:

“Am I someone that thinks that I have the right to sit back and judge someone that I don’t know, will never meet, on how they should live their life or what rights they can have to live their life the way they want to? I don’t think I deserve that responsibility.”

And on abortion:

“Obviously, conservatives would look at me cross-eyed and argue vehemently with me, but I just don’t think one man can tell another man how they can live their life within the confines of moral decisions.”

Like I said, I don’t think John Rocker and I would agree on almost anything if we sat down to discuss politics. But I’ll say that, after years of treating him like a punchline, he deserves a little more credit. Not because his views here on a couple of issues hew more closely to mine, but because, if he is writing these columns himself, there is actually some thought put to them and a form of intellectual consistency to them that I admire.