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It's Slow, but Progress
Comes
By
Ronald Hube
Special to
Outsports.com
As gay football fans look back on the
2003 season, they are likely to recall Detroit Lions president Mike
Millen calling Kansas City Chiefs receiver Johnnie Morton a “faggot”
during a game in December, and Millen’s lame public apology
afterward: He merely said he was sorry if he offended anyone. He
didn’t say his comment was wrong.
But weak as that halfhearted apology was, the fact that Millen had
to say he was sorry at all is a sign of progress toward diminishing
homophobia in sports.
Twenty years ago, it would have been unlikely for management of a
sports franchise to recognize that calling someone a “faggot” is
offensive to anyone except the person to whom the word was directed.
And it would have been unlikely for that person to react the way
Morton did--the receiver said the comment bothered him because he
has friends who are gay.
For a pro football player to publicly acknowledge having gay
friends, and to defend them from attack, is remarkable in the year
2004. It would have been unimaginable in 1984.
This incident is not the only sign that things are improving a bit
for gay athletes and gay sports fans.
Officials in North Carolina State University’s athletic department
apparently did not think it was funny when Scooter Sherrill, a guard
on the school’s basketball team,
said in February that Duke University basketball player J.J.
Redick acts “like he’s gay or something.” The next day, Athletic
Director Lee Fowler said Sherrill had apologized, and not just to
Redick but to everyone who took offense. "Coach (Herb) Sendek has
met with Scooter about his comments, and Scooter regrets what he
said and wishes to apologize to anyone who was offended," Fowler
said.
New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza’s declaration to reporters in May
2002 that he is not gay was a sad spectacle, but it was preceded by
manager Bobby Valentine’s remark that baseball is “probably ready
for an openly gay player. “ “We are all big boys,” Valentine said.
“We can handle it.”
That same month, when Sports Illustrated asked New York Yankees
pitcher Mike Mussina if he would accept a gay teammate, Mussina
replied, “I’m going to make the assumption that I already have.”
Late last year, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer appeared at the Gay
and Lesbian Foundation of South Florida’s annual gala. According to
the gay newspaper The Express, Dan Pye, a gay friend of Palmer, said
that the former Baltimore Orioles pitcher “is very much a
heterosexual man. The reason he was there is that we invited him and
he wanted to show his support for the foundation and the gay
community.”
Some sports franchises are actively marketing to gay audiences, such
as several WNBA teams and some in baseball. Last year the Chicago
Cubs held its third annual “Out at the Ballgame/Until There’s a Cure
Day,” a fund-raising event for HIV/AIDS organizations. The Windy
City Gay and Lesbian Chorus sang the national anthem.
Undoubtedly, professional and college sports as a whole remain
uncomfortable with, and sometimes hostile toward, gay and lesbian
people. Cleveland Indians minor league pitcher Kazuhito Tadano, who
once appeared in a gay porn video, illustrated that last month when
he announced to the press, through an interpreter, “I’m not gay. I’d
like to clear that fact up right now.”
And for every Mike Mussina and Jim Palmer, there are surely several
John Rockers and Jeremy Shockeys.
But as other segments of society become more accepting of sexual
minorities, so does sports—albeit at a slower pace than most.
Feb. 18, 2004 |
