When idiots of yore tossed slurs and epithets at sporting events, they had the sorry excuse of living in an America where segregation not only was common but also legislated.

Impolite folks too ignorant to know better and too lazy to learn routinely wrapped themselves in bigotry, sparing no one, as was discovered by Jewish slugger Hank Greenberg and black pioneer Jackie Robinson.

That was the 1930s and ’40s and ’50s, when many were denied civil rights and voting rights and the system was contaminated with the poisons of prejudice.

What’s the excuse now that we’re supposed to be so much more evolved?

Hatred within the sports community isn’t gone; it simply has a popular new target. Instead of ethnicity, it’s sexuality. With the K-word extinct and the N-word rarely uttered with malice, the new undisputed champion of epithets is the F-word.

Not the four-letter bomb but the homophobic insult comprising six letters.

Pro athletes, many of them among our biggest stars, are in the midst of a staggering run of name-calling, dropping F-words as casually as if ordering a burger and fries. Less than three weeks into July, at least three jocks are vying for Sports Jackass of the Month.

Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end James Harrison, a hair-trigger shotgun of a man interviewed for a magazine article, included the F-word in his verbal evisceration of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Oakland A’s farmhand Ian Krol, pitching in Arizona while recovering from an arm injury, tweeted the F-word presumably describing some, but not all, male students at Arizona State University.

White Sox second baseman Gordon Beckham is a distant third in this race because he avoided the F-word. He merely scribbled in the infield dirt “Getz is gay! GB” and left it to be discovered by Royals second baseman Chris Getz.

Insofar as Beckham and Getz are friends, there is no reason to presume malicious intent. No, it was just a tasteless “joke.” All three have since offered apologies. That, however, misses the point. Each evidently failed to understand — or simply didn’t care about — the impact of his words and actions.

When Kobe Bryant slapped a referee with the F-word in April, the NBA slapped back, fining the Lakers star $100,000. When Bulls center Joakim Noah slung the F-word at a heckling fan, the league tossed a $50,000 fine into his lap.

Pejoratives have been around from the instant man noticed differences in the way people look, think, behave, walk and talk. It appears we have stumbled onto a trend, public displays of hatred expressed by casual usage of the F-word.

There also are differences, too, in the way people view sexuality. There are those who actually believe California Gov. Jerry Brown, by signing Senate Bill 48 — essentially prohibiting discrimination in education — is promoting the teaching of “gay history.” This ignores the fundamental truth, that gays, like everyone else, are intertwined with history because they, like everyone else, have been present throughout history.

But with public racism driven underground and the N-word reduced to a whisper or dialogue among bigots, homophobia has become the new racism. Contempt once reserved for ethnic minorities and Jews has descended on homosexuality, and the subject ignites overheated debate in the political arena, the church and the locker room.

And we like to think of sports as an island of tolerance. Greenberg and Robinson eventually were accepted. The majority of our sports come in a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and colors.

That’s why sports should, once again, take the lead in pulling society’s foot-draggers toward greater tolerance.