04/24/24
September 30, 2003
"I'm out because I no longer, in good conscience, choose to ignore the unabashed homophobia that is so cavalierly tolerated within the world of sports." -- Ed Gray, a sportswriter who covers the Patriots for the Boston Herald (via MetaFilter)
I saw this early this morning, and got a kick out of the fact that it was in the "other sports" category. Homosexuality is a sport now? Good for the author, I suppose, but I think it will be another 10-15 years before the sports world is really ready for this sort of thing among athletes, which is stupid, really. I've never understood homophobia. Every time a guy comes out of the closet it just increases my odds of hooking up with a cute girl that otherwise might have been interested in him.
posted by Samsonov14 at 09:45 AM on September 30, 2003
Absolutely, Sammy - here in Toronto we have a large gay population - and they're all such good looking fellows. I'm glad they're gay. Less competition.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 10:47 AM on September 30, 2003
Sammy, the 'sports world' may take 10 years or more but I think instances such as this column are exeactly what's needed to get from here to there.
posted by billsaysthis at 02:06 PM on September 30, 2003
Actaully I think the whole 'sports world' notion is completely apologetic for these idiots. What - this sports world occurs in some far off universe that doesn't have the same newspapers, awareness and information as this one? These guys get cut too much slack as it is. I think it just highlights that most, or many if you want to give the benefit of the doubt, of these professional jocks are just stupid, egotisitc flesh-bags with million dollar bodies and five-cent heads. Hey don't get me wrong - I love watching the majesty and brutality of pro sports (there's moving art there sometimes) but I wouldn't get them to draft a human rights bill. They bounce balls and shit. For a living.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 02:16 PM on September 30, 2003
Art imitates life: Yesterday's episode of Playmaker's outed one of the football players on the team as gay. Didn't out him to the team, mind you, just wrote a storyline where teammates were trying to set him up with a ho du jour and he was hesitant and his cover story was that he had a girlfriend...but the denouement of the episode he ends up breaking up with his boyfriend. Can't wait to see where the writers and ESPN take it.
posted by vito90 at 08:52 AM on October 01, 2003
Samsonov14: Never heard of sport-fucking? I applaud what he's trying to do, but I doubt he'll achieve what he hopes. Over in rugby league, Ian Roberts, a forward renowned as one of the hardest bastards in the game, and much loved by the fans, came out at the height of his game, while his club and international career was peaking, so he was pretty much bullet proof in the eyes of fans; I read an interview with him many years ago where he explained that while many good things had come out of this for him, the one thing that everyone told him would happened turned out to be a lie. None of the other sports stars he knew were gay or bisexual followed suit, either in his own sport or in other Australian sports.
posted by rodgerd at 09:33 PM on October 01, 2003
As I posted on MetaFilter, it's pretty ironic that a Patriots reporter would be the one to reveal this. In 1990, three members of the Patriots were fined for exposing themselves to Herald reporter Lisa Olson and taunting her -- making remarks to the effect of, "this is what you're here to see."