The New York Times’ obituary of football star Reggie White contains the following indictment:

White created a stir in March 1998 with a speech to the Wisconsin State Assembly. In it, he referred to homosexuality as “one of the biggest sins in the Bible” and used ethnic stereotypes for blacks and whites.

At the time, White, considering retirement, was on a list of candidates for CBS’s N.F.L. studio show, but he did not get the job.

The Associated Press takes a similar line, wrapping up its obituary with the following editorial slam:

White worked tirelessly with disadvantaged youths. But his image was tarnished when he gave a speech in which he denounced homosexuality and used ethnic stereotypes. White later apologized.

“Tarnished?” Tarnished according to whom? Colby Cosh provides a withering rejoinder to White’s politically correct press critics:

[White's] “stereotyping” of the races was little more than a statement of the Solzhenitsyn position on the existence of human varieties–i.e., that it’s, on balance, a good thing that they exist. And how exactly does one challenge his description of homosexuality as “one of the biggest sins in the Bible?”…

No black American’s image was ever “tarnished” by rapping about murdering gays, as opposed to merely describing them as sinful. One is tempted to suggest that these obits, in standing up for “diversity” by reproducing the blot on White’s copybook, are implicitly bashing a black man for daring to speak out loud without a drum track.

Hat tip to Paul Cella, who adds that the media’s “hypocrisy hangs thick in the air.”

The only image tarnished here is the “objective” MSM’s.

Update: Bob at Civil Commotion makes an interesting comparison between coverage of Reggie White’s death and that of America-bashing essayist Susan Sontag’s.