Badge of honor?

You couldn’t be more wrong about that. Being called a faggot is to be mocked and ridiculed. Your believing it is honorable is deeply weird.

As to issues that really matter, the pervasive homophobia that fills American air is probably the biggest cultural challenge that faces people of minority sexual orientations and even gender identities.

What you see as a profuse apology, many receive as politically correct formality. The PGA’s apathetic response speaks for itself. They didn’t feel strongly enough about the matter to elevate it to the profoundly critical lapse of professional conduct that it is.

And the golf world is largely echoing them — by insisting Thomas did nothing wrong in the first place.

As I wrote, his apology is a nice start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. He must counter his horrifying anti-gay slur with real action to change things for the better.