Outsports
Ring Of Honor

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By Outsports.com

Here is a list of anti-gay slurs uttered by sports figures in recent years that have made it into the public realm. We realize that an anti-gay utterance does not mean someone is homophobic, but it is important that they be called on their words. If we have missed anyone, please e-mail us. John Rocker set the standard so we use him as our scale.

Athlete / Status When Making Slur

Slur / Analysis

Rockers (scale of 1-5)

Hardaway made big news when he uttered these words on a Miami radio station when asked out the coming out story on former NBA player John Amaechi. He later tried to backtrack in a TV interview, saying: "I shouldn't have said that I hate gay people or anything like that. I should have just said I don't condone him being in the locker room."

Hardaway then made a bizarre comparison to the way he talks about gays to the way he discusses food. "When I was growing up…..we say we hate broccoli, we say we hate potato chips… It's just a form of how we talk."

With each subsequent interview, Hardaway made things worse. On ESPN.com, he said, while saying he didn't have a "hate bone" in his body, he added: "You know, we were brought up to not even condone or associate yourself with a gay person. If you knew of a gay person, disassociate yourself with them. ...  When I see gay people holding hands or kissing in the streets, I just don't think that's right."

Analysis: The NBA dropped Hardaway from official functions at its 2007 All-Star Game. We removed him from representing us because we didn't think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us," NBA commissioner David Stern said

Hardaway also lost his job as coach of a team in the Continental Basketball Assn. "As it relates to the CBA, we do not discriminate against individuals based on sexual orientation," league commissioner Ricardo Richardson said.

Hardaway said his life in the week after uttering his words was "hell. Pure hell." He deserves it.

Porter issued a non-apology apology, saying, "I apologize to anybody I offended on it. I didn't mean to offend nobody but Kellen Winslow. Pretty much, that's it about that." In trying to justify his use of language, Porter said it was a common word in his upbringing. "I guess how we used that word freely, me growing up using it, I didn't think nothing of it like that," Porter said. 

A week later the NFL fined Porter $10,000 for what was termed "vulgar, inexcusable statements." It is believed to be the first time the league has fined a player for making homophobic comments.  

Analysis: Bravo to the league for fining Porter. Using his upbringing as an excuse was lame as was his "apology."

This is not the first time Guillen has used anti-gay language (see below), and again the White Sox organization is trying to cover for him: "Obviously, from an organizational perspective, I don't think in that case that Ozzie was trying to disparage a group,'' Scott Reifert, the Sox' vice president of communications, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "That said, it certainly is a poor word choice. It's insensitive. It's not something we would condone, not something the White Sox would stand for.'''

Greg Couch, Sun-Times columnist, ripped into Guillen and said he needs to be suspended. He told Guillen what he was going to write:

Guillen said that in Venezuela, that word is not a      reference to a person's sexuality, but to his courage. He said he was saying that Mariotti is "not man enough to meet me and talk about [things before writing].''

He also said that he has gay friends, goes to WNBA games, went to the Madonna concert and plans to attend the Gay Games in Chicago.

"I called that of this man [Mariotti],'' he said. "I'm not trying to hurt anybody [else].''

Couch wasn't buying Guillen's justification: "Guillen is not dumb. Let's not insult him. He knows what he's saying, and he certainly knows that it's not acceptable. He has been in this country for a quarter of a century. This offseason, I went to his swearing-in as a U.S. citizen. He was wrong. And he needs to apologize. And he needs to be suspended. Are you listening, Bud Selig?"

A day later, Guillen sort of apologized: "I shouldn't have mentioned the name that was mentioned. A lot of people's feelings were hurt, and I didn't mean it that way," Guillen explained. "I apologize, but I wasn't talking about those people."

"Those people"? How lovely.

Analysis: Couch is right and baseball needs to take action against Guillen. Claiming a cultural exemption doesn't wash. If I went to Venezuela and used language that slurred a group, then tried to claim it was OK by my country's standards, I'd be labeled an Ugly American.

Guillen uses homophobic language, then tries to cop out with the old "some of my best friends are gay" crap we hear from bigots all the time. And his Madonna Defense is especially lame. Words matter and Guillen should be held accountable. Winning a World Series shouldn't provide cover.

On our Discussion Board, one poster had a great idea: "Ozzie Guillen is a no-class piece of garbage. If 'freedom of speech' can prevent him from being suspended then we should find an alternate form of reprimand. I suggest a motorcycle ride with Ben Roethlisberger."

In addition, according to Dave Buscema, a columnist with the Times-Herald Record in New York, Guillen had "just about an hour before, around a group of female Japanese reporters ... called outfielder Tadahito Iguchi 'queer,' jokingly saying he should want to go out with one of them."

Analysis: We would like to think Guillen meant no offense and he did said he needs to be careful with his words. But equating gay people to child molesters is one of the biggest slurs homophobes have faced and Guillen is at least guilty of gross insensitivity. And his comment about Iguchi being "queer" is also offensive and adds to the sense that Guillen thinks making fun of gay people is humorous and acceptable.

How ironic that just minutes before he made his child molester comments, Guillen expressed offense at remarks by a San Francisco radio host who insulted the intelligence of Latin players. Guillen, who is from Venezuela, said about the anti-Latin remarks: "It's ignorant. It's just ignorant. You have someone dealing with the media, dealing with people, to say something like that, that's ignorant, man."

We agree with what Newsday's Wallace Matthew wrote: "The juxtaposition of righteous indignation followed almost immediately by incredible insensitivity would actually have been funny if it had not been so uncomfortable. And hypocritical, not to mention offensive."

In April 2005, Hutcherson met privately with a Microsoft official and threatened a boycott of its products if it did not rescind its support for a gay rights measure before the Washington Senate. Coincidence or not, Microsoft, which had supported the measure, decided to stay neutral and the bill lost by 1 vote. "If I got God on my side, what's a Microsoft? What's a Microsoft? It's nothing," Hutcherson told the New York Times.

Hutcherson said Christians who disagreed with him on gay issues were "evangelly-fish" because they lacked a "spiritual backbone," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

Some of Hutcherson's other quotes on gays:

--"I kick 'em out," he said if he discovers a parishioner is gay. "I do it three or four times a year. You bring up their names during the church service, and if they won't repent, won't turn away from sin, you have to kick 'em out."

--"Christ talks about marriage between a man and a woman, and Christ would have expelled homosexuals."

--Gays "can stop choosing what to do what they do, and they can hide it anytime they want. They can hide their homosexuality. Could I take a 'don't ask don't tell' policy as an African-American? I could try even to pretend I was Puerto Rican, but I'm still going to get blasted for my skin color."

--“When [supporters of the gay rights bill] stepped out and tried to make their policy my policy and other companies’ policy and the state’s policy, they stepped into a den of snakes, and I was the main cobra."

Analysis: His actions speak for themselves. Hutcherson is not a man of God, but a man of Hate.

... (Hutcherson's off the scale)

"I don't believe in how some people live,'' Timlin told the Hartford Courant. "`When it comes time and you're standing in front of God, you have to face judgment for what you do. Now if you're doing something wrong, it is my responsibility as a Christian and a human being to try to guide you away from doing something wrong. All I can do is try to guide you. I can't lead you.''

Analysis: If by "doing something wrong," Timlin meant someone wearing wearing a check shirt with striped pants, we agreed they should incur the wrath of the Almighty. But we suspect Timlin is just another homophobe who masks his prejudice with his religion. (In the same article, teammate Trot Nixon stressed he wasn't criticizing his teammates for receiving makeovers. It just wasn't something he would be interested in because of his Christian beliefs.)

First off, as far as the rap lyrics are concerned, Iverson said that in the streets "faggot" refers to anyone who is considered weak rather than referring exclusively to homosexuals. I'm not saying that makes it OK, but I do think it warrants mention considering that we would like people to educate themselves about us it would serve us to be educated about that terminology and the context in which it was being used.

More importantly, I have been watching Allen Iverson for nine years and although many people have clung to the stereotype that goes along with the name and image, I have found Allen to be true to his words on every occasion. Specifically while taking heat from the local gay community Iverson said of the criticism, "My cousin (Shaun Bowman) is gay and I wouldn't ever want to say anything to hurt him."

And lastly a little known fact. At the time this was happening Iverson and his agent had actually scheduled a meeting with a local gay activist group to explain himself in person but after the explanation was printed in the paper and the quote about his cousin was widely known among the community, the activist group cancelled the meeting, satisfied that they got what they wanted.

Also, I wanted to note that the album didn't bomb, it was actually very well received by several hip hop magazines but was shelved due to pressure from NBA commissioner David Stern.