Northern Ireland Sports Minister Edwin Poots wins the award for clueless official of the year after he compared gay sports team to apartheid.
Discussing Belfast’s Ulster Titans, a gay rugby team, Poots said: “I just cannot fathom why people see the necessity to develop an apartheid in sport.”
“It would be unacceptable to produce an all-black rugby team or an all-white team or an all-Chinese team. To me, it’s equally unacceptable to produce an all-homosexual rugby team, and I find it remarkable that people who talk so much about inclusivity and about having an equal role in society would then go down the route of exclusion.”
One of the team’s founders, Declan Lavery, told the BBC that anyone was welcome to play. “When the club was set up it welcomed members regardless of their age, creed, religion, sexual orientation or whatever, and that’s how it continues,” Lavery said.
Poots is simply a misinformed boob who has no concept of how gay sports associations came about. Apartheid is an odious social concept, practiced in South Africa, which systematically made one group of people second-class citizens on the basis of their race. It is offensive to use this same term to apply to gay organizations. Gay sports groups do not exclude others from participating, so the analogy is flawed on its face.
“Gay-oriented” is a better description of groups like the Titans and every other (Outsports has a comprehensive list). None I know of prohibit non-gay players and none impose a “litmus test.” Instead, by identifying as gay, these groups become a welcoming place for those athletes who feel they have to hide or censor themselves if their play on a mainstream team or simply want the camaraderie; there’s simply less BS to deal with. It’s similar to social groups formed by any minority.
“As a club, we feel it is important that the focus remains on the sport,” said Titans player Trevor McMahon. We are simply a bunch of like-minded guys who get together to play rugby. We are here for the sport, not the politics that may surround it. We see the sport as our first priority; our sexuality or perceived sexuality has no influence over our sporting ability. We hope that the line can now be drawn under Mr. Poots’ comments and that we can be left to enjoy playing rugby.”
The Bingham Cup, the international gay rugby tournament, will be in Dublin, Ireland, in June. Poots should attend and perhaps he’ll learn something about how sports transcends labels. –Jim Buzinski
Hat tip: San Francisco Bay Times
on Mar 1st, 2008 at 8:34 PM
While obviously apartheid would be an inapproporiate and wrong description, I don’t understand all these gay-oriented teams. I play sports and I play on teams with my friends, which happen to have all straight guys. Going out of your way to create a gay-oriented team only creates further segregation. You get a lot further in life by integrating yourself and exposing yourself as a normal guy to a team full of straight people.
on Mar 1st, 2008 at 9:29 PM
this is guy is a member of the Democratic Unionist Party
if you all remember Ian Paisley-this is his political party
they are very fundamentalist Protestant and very anti-Catholic
on Mar 2nd, 2008 at 9:55 AM
Maybe the policy has changed, but don’t most softball teams in the US have a cap on the number of “non-gay” players on the team? I realize that’s one exception to the general rule that most sports out there are inclusive of everyone, but I’ve always thought the “straight cap” was kind of insulting.
Re: “Have to agree” I think both paths are important. My personal example goes as this – I’m an assistant coach for varsity swimming and water polo at MIT (and if you don’t know MIT swimming, we have the current national champion in 1M diving, and are sending a number of guys and girls to nationals in other events as well), and I am out to all the coaches and lifeguards (many of whom I consider friends outside of the pool as well), and even a few of the swimmers. So, I feel that I am doing my part to “expose myself as a normal guy to a team full of straight people”. However, I still enjoy playing rugby with the Boston Ironsides, and have even recently been working with LANES (swim team) to start a water polo program with them, in hopes of sending a team to IGLA in DC this year.
The gay-oriented teams provide a great, HEALTHY, social outlet for those of us who don’t enjoy the bar scene, or limit ourselves to trolling around on websites.
So, like I said, both paths have their pros and cons, but I don’t think that one choice is exclusively better than the other.
on Mar 4th, 2008 at 7:46 PM
It’s not so much offensive as it is laughably naive and profoundly ignorant. The comments label him as a moron, more than a bigot.
on Mar 9th, 2008 at 9:12 AM
Name me current gay sports players in Great Britian. Can’t? I thought so. The reason why these gay sports teams exist is because of the straight supremacist mindset that exists in sports that you either have to be straight or pretent to be straight to be accepted.
These are the three signs a point-of-view is apart of the straight supremacist ideology:
CONTROL: straight supremacists want to control what gay people can and can’t do.
INSIGNIFICANT/ SUPERSIGNICANT: straight supremacists will treat gay people as if they are insignificant or supersignificant. Example of insignificant treatment: it doesn’t matter if no openly gay person was ever on American Idol. Example of supersignificant treatment: gay people are destroying society.
DIFFERENT RULES: straight supremacists will apply different rules to gay people than straight.