SI Survey: Homosexuality in Sports

[Crapshoot]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...418/index.html

I believe that homosexuality as a way of life should be accepted* 61%
It is OK for male athletes to participate in sports even if they are openly gay 86%
It would hurt an athlete's career to be openly gay 68%
The reason there is so little coverage of gays in sports is that America is not ready to accept gay athletes 62%
Brands and products are unlikely to select athletes as endorsers if the athletes are gay or have only been accused of being gay 64%


Around the same time that Magic Johnson disclosed that he had HIV, a far less luminous star in the NBA cosmos gave thought to disclosing that he was gay. He decided that lugging around the secret of his "lifestyle" like a spare tire was, finally, less burdensome than facing the consequences of revealing it. A friend of the player's told SI that the potential for disrupting that ineffable, all-important team chemistry figured into the decision. But the most important factor was the fans' potential reaction. "He had visions of getting booed when he touched the ball and being subjected to slurs every night," says the friend. "And the road games would have been worse."

That was in the early 1990s. In the decade since, attitudes toward homosexuality in sports have ... well, it's hard to say what they've done. In response to the buzz created at the Sundance Film Festival by Ring of Fire, the documentary about Emile Griffith, and in anticipation of its telecast on April 20, NBC and USA Network commissioned a national poll last month on the issue of homosexuality in sports. Responses reveal that the subject not only cleaves public opinion -- which, of course, was already known by folks on both sides of the red state-blue state division -- but is also a source of deep conflict for individual respondents.

Consider that of 979 people interviewed, 86% agreed that it is O.K. for male athletes to participate in sports, even if they are openly gay, yet nearly a quarter of the respondents agreed that having an openly gay player hurts the entire team. "It was like, I'm O.K. with this, but if you press me, I have some doubts," says Doug Schoen, whose firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, conducted the poll.

In the face of such data it comes as no great shock that while homosexuals are thought to compose anywhere from 4% to 10% of the general population, among the 3,500 or so men active in the four major professional sports not a single homosexual is "out." The few pro athletes who have divulged their homosexuality have, tellingly, done so in retirement, long after they depended on teammates to pass them the ball or execute a block and long after they depended on fans to, effectively, pay their salaries. The gay lifestyle may be increasingly accepted -- embraced even -- in a mainstream popular culture that beams Will & Grace's Jack McFarland and a not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-it ethos into our living rooms. But in a sports culture that hemorrhages testosterone and is widely read as a barometer of machismo, homosexuality remains the love that dares not speak its name.

Examples of athletes showing hostility toward gays are many and varied, from running back Garrison Hearst's declaring, "I don't want any faggots on my team" to Allen Iverson's rapping about "faggot tendencies" to Sterling Sharpe's telling HBO that his former Seattle Seahawks teammate Esera Tuaolo was wise to have concealed his homosexuality while he was an active player. "Had he come out on a Monday, with Wednesday, Thursday and Friday practices, he'd have never gotten to the other team," Sharpe said.

Even professed tolerance can be revealing. During his disastrous appearance before Congress last month, Mark McGwire read a statement claiming, "I do not sit in judgment of other players, whether it deals with their sexual preference, their marital problems ... including whether or not they use chemical substances." McGwire clearly meant to convey open-mindedness, but it did not go unnoticed that he grouped sexual preference with ills on the order of domestic strife and drug use.

Says Giants pitcher Jason Christiansen, who says he has a gay relative, "I don't think attitudes of ballplayers have changed over the years."

Compounding the dilemma of a gay athlete is the virtual certainty that the first active player to come out will do so at his financial peril. Those Red Sox fans clad in shirts reading JETER'S A HOMO and those NASCAR gearheads who frequent the website -- note the acronym -- Fans Against Gordon are also consumers. According to Schoen's poll 18% of Americans would be less likely to purchase footwear or apparel endorsed by a gay athlete. (Roughly 4% would be more likely.) "If I were a marketer looking at this data," says Schoen, "I would say, 'Boy, if I have an openly gay athlete, I may well have problems I don't need.'"

Adds Dean Bonham, a Denver-based sports-marketing expert, "The question isn't whether coming out would have a negative impact on an athlete as an endorser. The question is, how much of a negative impact."

With that as a backdrop, it's no wonder that Kordell Stewart, when he was a Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, called a team meeting to scuttle rumors that he was gay. ("You'd better not leave your girlfriends around me," he allegedly warned, "because I'm out to prove a point!") Or that, in a truly postmodern moment, Mike Piazza called an impromptu press conference to announce defiantly, "I date women." Or that, after it came to light that he had appeared in a gay porn video, Indians minor league pitcher Kazuhito Tadano tearfully apologized but insisted, "I'm not gay. I'd like to clear that fact up right now."

The wheels of change may spin slowly in sports, but they do spin. A full 79% of the poll respondents agreed that Americans are more accepting of gays in sports today than they were 20 years ago. Reality bears this out. Owing to her status as an avowed lesbian, Martina Navratilova was commercially radioactive in the 1980s, when she was the best tennis player in the world; she now endorses products from Under Armour to Juiceman. During spring training Johnny Damon, Tim Wakefield and three other Boston Red Sox players taped a segment of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, replete with back waxings and spa treatments. (Maybe it's not the most compelling evidence of a cultural shift, but try for a second to imagine Ted Williams submitting to an afternoon with Carson Kressley and the gang.) Asked last week whether he would accept a gay teammate, Ken Griffey Jr. laughed and said, "Wouldn't bother me at all. If you can play, you can play."

Who knows? With attitudes like Griffey's, there will come a day when locker rooms and clubhouses cease to double as walk-in closets. But as Schoen's poll confirms, we're not there yet.

[cuervo72]

Sterling Sharpe's telling HBO that his former Seattle Seahawks teammate Esera Tuaolo

Somebody didn't fact check...

[rkmsuf]

With that as a backdrop, it's no wonder that Kordell Stewart, when he was a Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, called a team meeting to scuttle rumors that he was gay. ("You'd better not leave your girlfriends around me," he allegedly warned, "because I'm out to prove a point!") Or that, in a truly postmodern moment, Mike Piazza called an impromptu press conference to announce defiantly, "I date women." Or that, after it came to light that he had appeared in a gay porn video, Indians minor league pitcher Kazuhito Tadano tearfully apologized but insisted, "I'm not gay. I'd like to clear that fact up right now."

I'm not sure why but that whole paragraph made me laugh.

[NoMyths]

Interesting article.

Amusingly enough, though, this was the thing that caught my eye the most:

Consider that of 979 people interviewed, 86% agreed that it is O.K. for male athletes to participate in sports, even if they are openly gay, yet nearly a quarter of the respondents agreed that having an openly gay player hurts the entire team

Not only the fact-checking as above, but the copy-editing got burnt here as well...according to that sentence's misused comma, only 86% of people interviewed agreed that it is OK for male athletes to participate in sports. Guess the other 14% felt only female athletics should be allowed. :P

[Desnudo]

I would call a conference at work if I had been unfairly accused of being gay. Of course if I were Piazza or Stewart, I would have at least been honest about it.

[cody8200]

Why should I know the sexual orientation of anyone in sports? I don't need a straight guy saying he's straight and I don't need a gay guy saying he's gay. Go play baseball or football and I'll tell you if you suck or not.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by cody8200

Why should I know the sexual orientation of anyone in sports? I don't need a straight guy saying he's straight and I don't need a gay guy saying he's gay. Go play baseball or football and I'll tell you if you suck or not.

Good choice of words there.

[cody8200]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Good choice of words there.

Thanks

[Zippo]

magic johnson is gay?

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Zippo

magic johnson is gay?

His name is kinda gay.

[SirFozzie]

"It is OK for male athletes to participate in sports even if they are openly gay 86%"

And the amount of people who picked the answer solely because it was the politically correct answer?

We are nowhere near ready for an openly gay, active star athlete. Not now, not five years from now.

As long as there's idiots like the "Reverend" Phelps and sites like godhatesfags.com with significant percentages of followers, America will not be ready.

[Draft Dodger]

personally, I don't think it's going to be as much of a big deal as people think it will be.

[Draft Dodger]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

"It is OK for male athletes to participate in sports even if they are openly gay 86%"

And the amount of people who picked the answer solely because it was the politically correct answer?

We are nowhere near ready for an openly gay, active star athlete. Not now, not five years from now.

As long as there's idiots like the "Reverend" Phelps and sites like godhatesfags.com with significant percentages of followers, America will not be ready.

if Tom Brady came out of the closet today, he'd still sell a ton of jerseys.

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

if Tom Brady came out of the closet today, he'd still sell a ton of jerseys.

This I vehemently disagree with. As wrong as it may be, kids would think that wearing his jersey would associate them with his sexual orientation. I think his jersey sales would drop tremendously.

[gottimd]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

This I vehemently disagree with. As wrong as it may be, kids would think that wearing his jersey would associate them with his sexual orientation. I think his jersey sales would drop tremendously.

I agree with Cuckoo completely. However, I associate all who wear Dallas Cowboy jerseys as blatant homosexuals.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

This I vehemently disagree with. As wrong as it may be, kids would think that wearing his jersey would associate them with his sexual orientation. I think his jersey sales would drop tremendously.

Sad, but likely correct. There'd be a few strong individuals that would continue wearing the jersey in public, and you'd probably see a lot of gays buying and wearing the jersey, but the average Joe Sixpack and his kids would stop wearing it.

[Karlifornia]

Yeah, if Brady came out as gay, do you really think a straight 15-year-old male is going to want to wear that to school? He'd be pounded into submission verbally, and possibly physically. Even in San Francisco.

[jaygr]

Originally Posted by Zippo

magic johnson is gay?

I second this. Despite hearing so much about his situation over the years I honestly don't remember it coming out that he is gay

[SFL Cat]

I seem to recall Magic Johnson saying he had picked up HIV from heterosexual contact with someone who had the virus.

Of course, I also remember how many eyebrows were raised when he and Isaiah Thomas gave each other little "pecks" on the cheeks prior to games during the Lakers-Pistons championship series in the early 90s.

[NoMyths]

Food for thought:

Link: NYT: The Haunting of Emile Griffith

Full Text:
The Haunting of Emile Griffith
By Bob Herbert

The ex-champ was a few inches shorter than I'd imagined, and he had put on a few pounds. At age 67, all of his hair and some of his memory were gone. Absorbing blows over several years from the hardest-hitting people on the planet can cause confusion.

But he looked good. He smiled easily and was playful as a child. We went to lunch, and he told me some things he'd been reluctant to say for decades.

I had always thought of Emile Griffith as a man who had gone through most of his life dragging two enormous weights behind him. Although a five-time world champion, he is most widely known for a ferocious barrage of punches that he unleashed in the 12th round of a televised fight on a Saturday night in March 1962.

At the other end of those punches was the welterweight champion, a Cuban fighter named Benny (Kid) Paret. Paret was helpless, trapped on the ropes in a corner of the ring at the old Madison Square Garden in such a way that his body could not fall to the canvas. Griffith punched and punched, the blows landing with tremendous force, one after another after another, on Paret's unprotected head.

When the referee finally pulled Griffith away, Paret slid slowly to the canvas. I was a teenager watching this on television. It was obvious that Paret was in desperate trouble. His body seemed utterly lifeless. They carried him out on a stretcher, and he died 10 days later.

An extraordinary new documentary, "Ring of Fire," by the filmmaker Dan Klores and his co-director Ron Berger, tells the story of Emile Griffith and this fight that has never stopped haunting him. The film makes it clear that you can't explore that tragic fight and its aftermath without talking about Mr. Griffith's feelings about his own sexuality, which is the other torment he's had to haul around all these years.

One of the things I thought after watching the film was how far we haven't come in 43 years.

The fight on March 24, 1962, was the third between Griffith and Paret. They had split the first two bouts. Over that period Paret had repeatedly taunted Griffith, who had been a hat designer in the Manhattan garment district and was known to frequent gay clubs. At weigh-ins Paret would mock Griffith, and he called him a "maricón," a Spanish word guaranteed to infuriate.

It still infuriates. At lunch, Mr. Griffith's smile faded as he recalled the taunts he took from Paret. "I got tired," he said, "of people calling me faggot."

He said again, as he has many times, that he was sorry Paret had died. But he added: "He called me a name. ... So I did what I had to do."

How much has changed? As a society, we're still painfully twisted when it comes to homosexuality. A couple of guys holding hands. ... Women kissing on the mouth. ...

We know from the ugly and irrational fury over the gay marriage issue, and the silly "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the armed forces, that there are still tremendous reservoirs of fear and loathing ready to be unloaded on gay men and women who'd like nothing more than to live their lives freely, honestly and openly. Things are not as bad as they were in 1962, but they're not good.

Media reports have applauded the tolerance toward gays that has supposedly developed over the past several years, but I think much of that tolerance is wafer-thin. Millions of gay or bisexual Americans still live their lives locked inside the protective cloak of a falsehood - afraid, for very good reasons, to come out.

A poll conducted for NBC Universal's USA Network, which will be showing "Ring of Fire," found that 44 percent of the respondents believed that "homosexual behavior is a sin." A third said society should not accept homosexuality as a way of life, and 14 percent believed gay athletes should not be permitted to play team sports.

I asked Mr. Griffith if he was gay, and he told me no. But he looked as if he wanted to say more. He told me he had struggled his entire life with his sexuality, and agonized over what he could say about it. He said he knew it was impossible in the early 1960's for an athlete in an ultramacho sport like boxing to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm gay."

But after all these years, he wanted to tell the truth. He'd had relations, he said, with men and women. He no longer wanted to hide. He hoped to ride this year in New York's Gay Pride Parade.

He said he hadn't meant to kill Benny Paret, "but what he said touched something inside."

[KeyserSoze]

I can´t understand the importance of the sexual orientation of a player to be good-bad for a team. I work with some gays and that just ok. Why hell this will change our work?

Other thing is the sell of related objects. When somebody bought a player-related object says to the world, I want to be like him. So if he is a gay it could hurts. It´s sad but true.

Nowadays in US sports is a better thing to be convicted with serious charges, to be a drug user o to be juiced than to be gay...

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by jaygr

I second this. Despite hearing so much about his situation over the years I honestly don't remember it coming out that he is gay

Re-read the article. It's not saying Magic was gay, but that another (apparently mediocre) player was thinking of coming out at the same time that Magic announced he had HIV.

FWIW, that part of the article is poorly written and is a little confusing.

[andy m]

a gay footballer from the UK eventually committed suicide.

justin fashanu:

http://www.petertatchell.net/sport/justin%20fashanu.htm

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

personally, I don't think it's going to be as much of a big deal as people think it will be.

I don't think it will be, either. I think the biggest amount of noise that would be made after the initial announcement would be the reports of slurs used by fans against the person. And perhaps a TO-like personality making demeaning comments or otherwise raising the issue unnecessarily in interviews.

As for Tom Brady...winning cures everything, even gayness.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

As for Tom Brady...winning cures everything, even gayness.

Not for the center.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

Not for the center.

That's why the shotgun was invented, I'm sure of it.

[MIJB#19]

For those wondering, it's not an American thing.

The Netherlands could be the most homosexuality-friendly country in the world. It seems half, if not more, of tv hosts and singers is openly gay, politicians are known for their 'gayness', nobody complains, yet I can't think of a single soccer player that is known as being gay. It's hidden very well, or the macho culture either makes 'gay people' drop out or it's not appealing to them in the first place to start playing the game.

[QuikSand]

Maybe I'm a little too close to all of this, as our state legislature (where I make my living) has just gotten through a series of debates about ancillary gay rights issues... but it's my impression that being anti-gay is essentially the last bastion of socially acceptable bigotry.

I realize there are plenty of people who try very carefully to separate out the act form the person... the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" bit. Some are honest, some use that argument as a cloak. But for every honest one of those, there are plenty more who are just downright bigots when it comes to sexual orientation. And, it seems, there are any number of people who have otherwise very enlightened and fair views about matters of discriminiation on other bases, who then turn around and are surprisingly hateful toward homosexuals.

Sign me up for those who think that an openly gay Tom Brady tomorrow morning suddenly finds himself looked at and talked about much, much differently simply because of that fact. Kids wouldn't wear the jersey -- other kids would beat them up, and those other kids would probbaly have the (at least implicit) support of their parents and much of society in doing so. And then there would be another (tiresoem) round of gay and AIDS jokes, with Brady inserted as the victim/subject instead of George Michael or Liberace or Rock Hudson or whoever was in them last time they were told.


Personally, I agree that an athlete's sexual preferences isn't any of my business, and shouldn't be anyone else's. But how many times have we seen it -- a public figure is rumored to be gay, and suddenly he's a punchline. Just look around this forum -- there are people who are otherwise very respectful and reasonable on a wide range of issues, and then at the drop of a hat they'll make a "cocksucker" joke as if that's the most insulting name that could be conjured up to call anyone. And, save for a few voices of dissent (who then become targets of critisicm themselves), that is considered just fine -- calling someone you don't like a "faggot" is a-okay, apparently. And if you stand up against that sort of thing, then you must be a faggot, too.

It's as if people have some inherent need to hate some other group of people... and now that you can't get away with saying bigoted and mean things about racial or ethnic groups (presumably because of those fucking PC police) we cling to our right to denigrate someone, and it looks like we have just enough of a specious argument to keep gays on that list. So, we fire away.

[rkmsuf]

I hear all of that but isn't it human nature to discourage non-human nature behavior?

I mean it's kind of hard wired that in order to procreate as a species you need a man and woman. Anything other kind of goes against the grain of the design of the human itself.

I'm just talking in a general sense and not speaking to a view of an individual's self worth.

[QuikSand]

So, then you also have the same feelings about anyone who masturbates, right? That doesn't contribute toward procreation, either. And toward anyone who engages in oral sex, or other sexual activity that is not prone toward procreation (through timing or contraception) -- since that doesn't advance the species either, right?


I think it's a fair argument that "human nature" is what underlies this, but perhaps "human nature" is just a series of hedonistic urges, upon which we overlay a societal set of rules. The propagation of the species depends on heterosexual relationships yielding offspring, but does that necessarily have to determine who we love?

[rkmsuf]

It's not the contribution towards procreation in and of itself. It's just against a norm that was developed with good reason it would seem just based on survival and "inborn" instincts of the majority of humans. Perhaps you could argue being gay is inborn as well. I can't answer that one.

[NoMyths]

Very, very well said (in both posts), Quik.

[Klinglerware]

Lacrosse may not be a major sport, but it certainly has a big machismo level rivaling other male team sports. This guy just got picked in the latest Major League Lacrosse draft. He's probably one of the few openly gay male athletes playing a team sport professionally, so we'll see how/if things have changed in the past couple of decades...

hxxp://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2069239

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

if Tom Brady came out of the closet today, he'd still sell a ton of jerseys.

Granted, they may have hint's of pink and lace here or there.....

[BigJohn&TheLions]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

That's why the shotgun was invented, I'm sure of it.

Well, the shotgun was first used in San Fransisco!

Ironically, I bet you'd see a lot of Tom Brady jersey's being worn there (if he was gay.) BTW... How many Tight Ends has New England drafted recently?

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

I hear all of that but isn't it human nature to discourage non-human nature behavior?

I mean it's kind of hard wired that in order to procreate as a species you need a man and woman. Anything other kind of goes against the grain of the design of the human itself.

I'm just talking in a general sense and not speaking to a view of an individual's self worth.

Doesn't go against the grain at all. Since the human was designed to find sex pleasurable and desire it at all times, instead of only when the female is in heat, it might even be that the human body is DESIGNED to be bisexual.

Homosexuality = perversion is a cultural judgment, not a biological one.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

Doesn't go against the grain at all. Since the human was designed to find sex pleasurable and desire it at all times, instead of only when the female is in heat, it might even be that the human body is DESIGNED to be bisexual.

I'll go out and a limb and say it was not designed to be that.

[JeeberD]

Is it against human nature to masturbate?

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Is it against human nature to masturbate?

No. Your dog does it too if properly motivated.

EDIT: At this point though, I think it is really hard for us to know definitively whether the "boys always want sex" thing is really biologically driven, or the results of so many generations of societal pressure. I think it would be impossible to distinguish.

I prefer the biology angle, as it allows me to claim to my wife that since human females are most fertile between the ages of 16 and 20, I am biologically hardwired to be attracted to females of that age.

[sachmo71]

I wish I were sporty and gay.

[Raiders Army]

I'd like it if Anna Kournikova were gay or at least bi-sexual. I don't think it would hurt her in the least.

[Fonzie]

Originally Posted by Samdari

I prefer the biology angle, as it allows me to claim to my wife that since human females are most fertile between the ages of 16 and 20, I am biologically hardwired to be attracted to females of that age.

And how has that worked out for you?

[MrBug708]

Bumping an old thread for as it's probably the best one for this topic.

Jim Mora becomes (as far as I know) the first football coach speaking about about welcoming a potential gay athlete. (Most of the school does as well)

UCLA coach Jim Mora endorses gay athletes and coaches in his program | Dr. Saturday - Yahoo! Sports

To bad it looks like a bad 80's infomercial. UCLA marketing has to be one of the worst. If UCLA's film students can't produce anything better, it's time to start this program over.