Daily Beast Retracts Claim That Jason Collins “Didn’t Come Clean” About His Engagement To A Woman

The Daily Beast has retracted a column that claimed Jason Collins “didn’t come clean” about having been engaged to a woman in the essay Collins penned for Sports Illustrated.  The Daily Beast post has been widely trumpeted on anti-gay and right wing sites.  From the retraction notice:

In that piece, Collins wrote, “When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.” In his original blog post, [Howard] Kurtz incorrectly stated that Collins “didn’t come clean” about the engagement. In an amended version, Kurtz added that Collins “downplayed” the engagement and “didn’t dwell on it.” The Daily Beast sincerely regrets Kurtz’s error—and any implication that Collins attempted to hide or obscure the engagement.

UPDATE: Kurtz has “parted company” with Daily Beast.