Josh Thomson has never been one to shy away from expressing his opinion on socially divisive views. The thing is, as both a public figure and professional athlete, as well as an employee of a tremendously image-conscious brand, that directness can only stretch so far.

Like Nate Diaz and Matt Mitrione before him, Thomson said something he probably shouldn't have on social media. After posing a question, unprovoked, about whether or not humans should be allowed to "marry whoever they want," Thomson subsequently stated that legalizing gay marriage "opens a gateway" for both pedophilia and incest. He later went on to equate the situation to bestiality, as well.

Here's one of his quotes from Facebook.

My next question is, should siblings be allowed to marry siblings? My point is, where do you draw the line? I personally don't care who you marry but I also am smart enough to know that it opens a gateway to men/women trying to marry young kids, siblings marrying eachother and people having multiple husbands an wives. You have to think all of these things are okay otherwise your stopping them from being happy as well which is hypocrisy. Equality doesn't stop with gay marriage, it just starts with it.

Thomson is currently the No. 5 ranked lightweight fighter in the UFC, an organization that has had more than its fair share of troubles with the LGBT community. So unfortunately, whether he likes it or not, his words carry significant weight.

Bloody Elbow's Brent Brookhouse broke down the situation far more eloquently than I, but after everything that's happened over the past few months, one fact is simple: no positive outcome could result from making such a polarizing declaration. So why, I must ask, do we continue to have this conversation in mixed martial arts, when similar occurrences are so few and far between in other professional sports?

5 MUST-READ STORIES

Thomson speaks out. UFC lightweight contender Josh Thomson ignited a significant firestorm on social media when he declared that the legalization of gay marriage "opens a gateway" to pedophilia and incest.

CSAC reportedly bans TUEs. The California State Athletic Commission reportedly banned its ability to offer Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUE) for Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) to prize fighters competing within the state, according to a report from Zach Arnold of FightOpinion.

UFC 161 preview. Catch up on the latest from UFC 161 with open workout video, photos, and the complete UFC 161 Countdown show.

MMA Roundtable. Your humble Morning Report curator is joined by Dave Doyle to debate UFC heavyweight title match-ups, reflect on BJJ pay-per-views, peruse through Bellator's recent signing spree, and more.

Fight bookings. UFC officials announced a quartet of fight bookings on Wednesday: Louis Gaudinot vs. Tim Elliott at UFC 164, Cole Miller vs. Manny Gamburyan at UFC on FS1, plus Darren Elkins vs. Hatsu Hioki and Erik Perez vs. Takeya Mizugaki at UFC on FS1 #2.

MEDIA STEW

Steven Seagal's up to no good, always makin' trouble in the neighborhood.

The coolest Korean "Korean Zombie" promo you'll see all day:

Check out the trailer for an upcoming MMA documentary about 65-fight veteran Joe Doerksen titled Scheduled Violence. From the description: "At age 34, having recently been cut from the UFC, Joe is considering retirement. In a sport where fighters are only 'as good as their last fight,' he must decide if he can make another run in a sport that is famous for breaking people physically and mentally."

(HT: MiddleEasy)

Better H-Bomb: Dan Henderson or Johny Hendricks?

For all those interested, feel free to check out the first 10 minutes of Bellator's new reality show, Fight Master:

Seriously, where is this version of soccer? I'd watch this all day.

I'm starting to think that Jake Shields isn't a very good detective, you guys.

I'D HAVE $2

"@timkennedymma: If I had $1 for every Justin Bieber song I could sing or every Twilight movie I have watched... I would have $0" Id be rich — Nick Newell (@NotoriousNewell) June 12, 2013

MUST'VE BEEN THE GOOD STUFF

I am because we are, and because we are, I am.....I wish everyone of my followers can take a hit of dis. Damb talk about Cronik ha ha ha — phil baroni (@philbaroni) June 12, 2013

HARSH

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Announced yesterday (Wednesday, June 12, 2013):

FANPOST OF THE DAY

Today's Fanpost of the Day comes to us from heavyfl0w, who writes: The Nine Lives Of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira refuses to fade into irrelevancy. The guy has enough tales in and out of the ring to regale his future grandkids for days. In the history of MMA, you'd be hard pressed to select a fighter that has taken more damage and still kept fighting. Now, if you'd never heard of Rodrigo Nogueira, you might look at that last sentence as a subtle plea to Nog to hang them up. Nonsense! I would never say that about a guy who has examined his shortcomings, reinvented himself as a destructive boxer, inexplicably got tatted up in his late 30′s, and stayed in the heavyweight division's top 10 longer than Family Guy has been on the air. He just wont go away. So why do people keep expecting him to? I wrote that paragraph before Rodrigo lost to Fabricio Werdum via second round armbar last Saturday, and my thoughts towards him haven't changed. I mean, realistically, he shouldn't even be fighting at all. Who would have thought that, examining the fabled "big three" from the PRIDE days (Fedor, Cro Cop, and Nog), Nogueira would be the last man standing? It's unfathomable. Before I go off on an overly grandiose tangent about how highly I view Nogueira (who I somehow have never written a piece about, and I've been writing about MMA on and off for like 6 years), let's recap the Werdum rematch. Their first fight in 2006 saw Nogueira best Werdum with better standup, dropping the bigger man twice with punches. Werdum was also perplexed by Nog's ability to scramble, as he was unable to hold any sort of advantageous ground position. In one of the best performances of his career, Nogueira won by unanimous decision. More than anything else, Werdum is much better as a standup fighter now. He's never going to box guys up like Junior Dos Santos or anything, but he can at least throw heavy kicks and knees without fear of defensive liabilities coming back to bite him in the ass. He did this well against Nogueira, as he thwarted any real success by kicking his legs and taking him down from the clinch (where Werdum is an excellent wrestler). The beginning of the end for Nogueira was when he inexplicably dropped for a guillotine against one of the greatest submission grapplers who ever lived. He has a bad recent habit of going for submissions that lead to him getting a limb ripped off. Back in the day, he might have been quick enough to scramble out of trouble, but not now. He got beaten by a better grappler. After all the damage and all the beatings, and after he finally got stopped a few times, there still aren't 10 heavyweights better than Rodrigo. What I find so interesting about the way his career has unfolded is that, at various points, he's been a completely different fighter strategy-wise. He's had like 3 separate careers. The first was the "I'm purely a jiu-jitsu guy and I'm going to submit you immediately, and what the hell, it's RINGS, what am I going to do, ground and pound you?" era (1999-2001). This stretch saw him submit a bunch of jokers from a pretty archaic time in MMA history (David Dodd, Achmed Labasanov, Nate Schroeder), culminating in him tapping Valentijn Overeem twice. Remember, Overeem was considered a top ten heavyweight at the time, but has since been submitted roughly 395 times by worse grapplers than me. Rodrigo went 11-1-1 in RINGS. The second phase was the PRIDE era, which began with watershed performances against Gary Goodridge (never got off a punch), Mark Coleman (punched him in the face then tied him up in a sailors knot), Heath Herring (a drubbing), and Enson Inoue (choked him sleepy as one of Inoue's cornermen ran into the ring and pushed the referee out of the way for absolutely no reason at all). After these 4 fights, Nog's battles began to take a different tone. Even though he kept winning and winning, he developed a knack for making subpar fighters look better than they actually were. The main reason was that he would essentially allow guys to take him down because he believed in his jiu-jitsu so much. While this belief was ultimately warranted, it did lead to him taking unnecessary punches and slams from Bob Sapp (on an 11 fight losing streak) and Hirotaka Yokoi (who is Hirotaka Yokoi). This dynamic admittedly lead to some of the greatest displays of resiliency we've ever seen (I still can't believe some of the punches he took from Fedor Emelianenko didn't knock him senseless), and one of the best comebacks ever (the Cro Cop armbar). But still. Antonio was never knocked out in his stretch, which meant that he was getting hit tons and tons of times without the fight being stopped. It's unclear to me whether or not this has more serious long term effects than just getting knocked out over and over, but still. It can't be good. Nog went 17-3 in PRIDE. The third phase of his career is, without question, the one most resembling a roller coaster ride. His tenure in the UFC has seen him suffer his first knockout loss, his first submission loss, and his first "I was winning that fight, right up until I lost it" loss. It has seen him experience incredible highs (winning the UFC heavyweight title against Tim Sylvia, destroying Randy Couture in front of Couture's hometown crowd, knocking out Brendan Schaub in Brazil after most people had written him off), and devastating lows (getting flattened by Cain Velasquez, having his arm ripped off by Frank Mir in a fight he was winning handily). Here's a theory. Doesn't it seem like, since he's been through a few stoppage losses and ego-shattering tapouts, that he's just going for broke? The only real success he's having in these recent fights is with his boxing, both inside and outside. It's gotten to the point that going for submissions is probably a bad idea for him, unless it's against a novice like Dave Herman. I just wrote that it's a bad idea for Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to go for submissions, and you kept reading without batting an eyelash. It's true. Minotauro is 37 years old. He's coming off a loss, and the loss had nothing to do with the damage his head has accumulated throughout his career. He lost because his opponent is a better fighter than him. Then again, Werdum also might be next in line for a title shot. So the question is this: How much longer can Rodrigo fight at a reasonably high level? His jiu-jitsu is no longer his saving grace, and he's slowing down noticeably. He's fighting on borrowed time, but he's making the most of it. I could never imagine him fighting the Sean McCorkle's and the Pedro Rizzo's of the world, so the hope is that he walks away with dignity. I realize that this article is little more than a gushing, rambling piece of pro-Rodrigo propaganda, but I wanted to write about him before he hangs them up, to capture this specific moment in his career. I love the guy.

Found something you'd like to see in the Morning Report? Just hit me on Twitter @shaunalshatti and we'll include it in tomorrow's column.