(Screenshot courtesy of YouTube)

Chicago Tribune sportswriter Chris Hine publicly came out as gay in his column about the NFL’s anti-gay culture.

Hine, 29, says that hearing Ohio State cornerback Eli Apple was asked if he liked men by one of the team’s assistant coaches at the NFL scouting combine was familiar territory for him.

“As a 29-year-old gay man, I spent the better part of two decades agonizing over that question and finally, when I was 20, came to accept that the answer was “Yes.” It took another two years before I could tell my family, another year after that before I mustered up the courage to tell my closest friends and, well, six years after that to finally write about it in the Chicago Tribune,” Hine writes.

“But the episode that played out at the combine during Apple’s interview was disgraceful and illuminates just how far the NFL has to go before its culture embraces an openly gay player. It is still a league where being gay is seen as negative,” the sportswriter continued.

Hine says in the column the assistant coach told Apple, after asking if he liked men, that if he came to Atlanta “sometimes that’s how it is around here, you’re going to have to get used to it.’ ”

“If you read between the lines, Manuel is essentially saying, “Hey, if we pick you, you’re going to live in Atlanta and you might be out somewhere and get hit on by a gay guy. You’re OK with that, right? But you’re also not going to go home with him, right?,” Hine continued in the column.

Hine went on to say approaching athletes with negative gay stereotypes in mind can only be harmful and is reflected in the minimal number of out professional athletes, such as defensive linebacker Michael Sam and former NBA player Jason Collins, despite statistics stating gay men play professional sports but just aren’t out.

“It’s already hard enough for a gay athlete to accept himself, and I had hope after Sam came out that a sea change would come over the NFL and it gradually would open its arms to gay players. But that day is still off in the distance,” Hine concluded.