ESPN blasted in social media for firing Curt Schilling over transgender meme

BOSTON (Christian Examiner) – The social media world mostly criticized ESPN Wednesday for its firing of baseball analysist Curt Schilling after the baseball analysist shared a meme of a transgender man that some found offensive.

"History will recall Curt Schilling as a hero. ESPN looks like the morons on this one," read one comment on The New York Times' Facebook page.

Schilling sparked the so-called controversy Tuesday when he shared a meme of an overweight, hairy man dressed in leather and wearing a wig with the caption: "Let him in! To the bathroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!!!"

Although many social conservatives found the meme funny, ESPN did not.

"ESPN is an inclusive company," ESPN said in a statement. "Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated."

But the issue wasn't as clear-cut among ESPN's viewers or the general public. Even on the Facebook page of The New York Times – a left-leaning publication – supporters of Schilling were outnumbering critics.

"Not surprising from a network that was warped enough to make a man 'woman of the year.' The idiot train at ESPN chugs on!" commenter Jamie Fry wrote.

Another commenter, Kevin Ross, wrote, "So common sense bathroom rules gets someone fired but perverts in the women's restroom is ok with these nuts. Cutting the cable cord - goodbye ESPN."

Among the other highlights on The Times' Facebook page:

• "Curt is 100% right. And the only thing disgusting is the perv pictured in his get-up. This nation's concepts of morality and ethics have completely fallen out of the universe of reason." – Peter Kemph
• "ESPN calls themselves 'inclusive.' Apparently not." – Samuel Bell
• "Pathetic. He has every right to his opinion just as everyone else does." – Barbara Logan
• "The fact you fired him for saying men pee in the men's rooms and not in the women's room makes your network a network of Cowards!!!!" – Jared McCarthy
• "Boycot ESPN for not showing tolerance of another's view point" – Joe Lanza

On Twitter, there was plenty of pushback – and sarcasm.

"Curt Schilling suggested that men who think they're women aren't actually women, so now he can't analyze baseball games on TV. Got it," author and screenwriter Andrew Klavan tweeted.

Clay Travis, an author and Fox Sports 1 analyst, tweeted, "The morphing of ESPN from a sports network to a PC Bro political party has truly been a sight to behold." Travis asserted that the majority of sports fans aren't politically correct and that ESPN's ratings eventually would suffer.

Travis posted a Twitter poll about the incident, and supporters of Schilling were outnumbering ESPN backers, 66-34 percent. Nearly 3,000 people had voted.