The League, an NFL blog run by the Washington Post, has a terrific debate going on about whether the NFL is ready for an openly gay player. I was one of nine voices the Post sought for comment, along with other writers and three former players — Roman Oben, Ken Hutcherson and David Kopay (who came out in 1975). By far the most incendiary, stupid and offensive piece is from Hutcherson, a former Seahawk turned rabid anti-gay activist. Hutcherson (a minister) actually compares having an openly gay player with having a girl on the team.
Men are going to be more comfortable with other heterosexuals. It’s like having a woman on the team or having a woman in the shower. How can you keep your mind on the game when you’re thinking about running back to the showers? … What if a guy went out for the girl’s volleyball team? It’s just commonsense… but I don’t know why they call it commonsense anymore because it’s not very common.
Of course, my analysis yielded one comment so far; Hutcherson’s hate speech has gotten 70 and counting. It is worth reading all the views and thanks to Emil Steiner for inviting Outsports to contribute. I’ll leave the last word to my great friend Dave Kopay:
Sexuality is a personal and complicated thing. You can’t define somebody by a word. Love doesn’t have a gender, it’s love period. I know that. I knew that when i was married, I knew that when I was in the closet and I know that now… it’s just love.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 4:56 PM
is it “commonsense” to base your life around a fairy tale written thousands of years ago about a bearded man in the sky? no “gay in “team” but there’s a “huckster” in “hutcherson”, the snake-oil selling asshole!
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 8:37 PM
So Hutcherson thinks a gay man in the locker room would be as distracting to the other players as a woman.
What does that say about the other players’ sexuality
Methinks the man should think again about what he’s saying.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 9:36 PM
Jim, loved your analysis in the Washington Post piece. Great job.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 11:44 PM
Mr. Kopay summed it up perfectly. It’s about love.
Expanding on that theme there’s a cool (and pretty hot) guy in Seattle named Drew Emory who runs an LGBT community theater called the True Stories Project. He made an indy movie called “Inlaws and Outlaws” and it is literally about love. Same sex couples interviewed about their lives and relationships to demonstrate ‘mos aren’t much different from straight folks. He’s traveling the country in his “Hearts and Minds” campaign showing the film. Since I can’t print the link here Google “Inlaws and Outlaws” and it should come up. Good movie well worth watching. I’d be happy to lend my copy. He does fund the campaign by donations and selling discs though.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Not sure why its so tough to understand that straight guys might not feel comfortable showering with a guy they know is gay. What is the answer? Who knows – seperate locker rooms for the gay guys, maybe.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 11:51 PM
Greg, anyone who has made it to the NFL has been showering with gay guys for years. It’s not a potential out gay teammate’s fault that a few 80 IQ fellow jocks haven’t considered that possibility and might initially react in a negative way.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 1:39 AM
The shower thing is hilarious to me. So it would be terrible if there was a teammate that was gay in the shower – but it’s perfectly ok to have women in the lockerroom after the game for post game interviews?
The female sportscasters go into that locker room to do a job – not to check out the players. The same should be said about gay team-mates!
Not to mention the fact that as your team-mate, they look at you like a brother or a family member. And quite frankly, no one is gonna check out their family members lol.
Then again, what the hell do I know?
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 2:50 AM
unless those straight players have interrogated every guy in every locker room they’ve ever showered in about their sexual preferences, i guarantee they have showered with gays already and have survived…..
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Dear Enigma,
When are we going to stop these kid games and go out on a date? You’ve been dodging the question for years brother.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 2:08 PM
The problem with “the shower” myth is that it ignores the very real threat of bodily harm a gay player would face on the field.
The idea that an openly gay player is going to make a move on a fellow teammate, or even try to catch an eyeful, in an NFL locker room full of players, coaches, trainers, reporters, etc while he knows everyone is looking for just that kind of behavior is kind of laughable.
However, as Esera Tuaolo had pointed out many times, the real threat is violence on the field from gay hating players.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 5:07 PM
badlydrawnbear, that was probably the most poignant comment I’ve heard regarding the dangers out gay players would face in the NFL, were they to come out. As a gay community, we have to think on this and wonder if we are ready to allow our brothers to subject themselves to physical and verbal harm on the field, especially since that is the largest and most dangerous obstacle facing them. An openly gay player would unfortunately attract negative attention from opponents, and the end result would be a decline in team cohesiveness. This, I feel, is the only true argument against having out gays in the NFL. The sport is simply not ready.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 5:24 PM
I don’t know what’s more funny. The fact he’s a black man whose very own existence was disliked a little more than 40 years ago, or the fact he’s probably jacked off with a friend or two when he was younger.
What a fucking lunatic.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 6:07 PM
I’m sure, years ago, when the NFL and other pro sports were integrated racially, the same argument applied. What about violence on the field against AfricanAmerican or Latino players?
And who is this Ken Hutcherson? Does anyone else think that he seems to have a very high opinion of his desirability or his sexual prowess that his naked body would drive gay men to sexually attack him in the shower? Or maybe, just maybe, his fear is that he is NOT sexually attractive to gay men and he would feel humiliated if a gay man in the shower with him would not be sexually attracted to him because everyone knows that every gay man will have sex with every straight man given the opportunity because we apparently have no taste and are dogs that will hump anything with testosterone. I don’t know, but I want to see naked pics of him and if I believe that I would feel the need to sexually attack him in the shower if I were in his presence, I will apologize.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 8:11 PM
I think it would be best not to see Ken naked.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 10:20 PM
It is strange in a era when we debate Gay rights and equality, including the right to marry, there is this debate about sports. It seems we are attempting to jump over the lake rather than swim across it. As we fight for our rights, there are still so many cliches and stereotypes that are inbedded in American society regarding Gay men. How can someone be so ignorant and such a fool as to say it is the same as “having a girl on the team?” The assumption of course is one which all Gay men are assumed to be effeminate, yet we know this is far from the case. It is time for closeted college and professional sports gay men to act like men and stop hiding in the closet. There should be no more patience for this type of accepted attitude on the behalf of the Gay community. Coming out after you retire is a cop out and a joke. As we battle for our rights, we are continuously demonized, effeminized, and dehumanized by that kind of attitude described above. The best way to gain our rights is to stop hiding in the closet, and lead by example. These players do a disservice to themselves basically acknowledging their shame in who they are in being Gay. They deprive other Gay men in high school, college athletics, and in general a role models and a sense of pride. Honestly, if you look at the mainstream media we are rarely potrayed honestly, yet alone actually shown to exist. It is time to stop making excuses for these scared little boys and tell them to act like real Gay men and come out! It is more important than their careers, it is a matter of their dignity. Plus, Neal Patrick Harris is doing quite well last time I checked.
How can we be battling for equality, when we are hiding in the closet shaking what straights will think? It is ironic and sad.
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 12:47 PM
I actually hate this question. Whether a sport is “ready” for change is completely irrelevant. Society is rarely “ready” for change, even when change is just. All that matters is whether one person is “ready” for that change and he alone will affect it. Roger Goodell and team owners and players are irrelevant: It’s all up to that one man.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 2:23 AM
I think that the unarticulated fear with having a known gay man in the shower room is that the speaker will be emasculated by the preditory stare of the another man, much like the speakers stare upon a woman positions him as the preditor, so another man’s stare would impose upon him the castrated position of the female, the usual prey. Such a man is a masogynist and is unconfortable in situations that deviate from ‘traditional’ male and female rolls of aggression and submission.
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Ready or not, it’s just a matter of time before every single pro sport has openly gay and bisexual men. It’s call the progression of humankind.
Ready or not, it’s just a matter of time before every state in the union legalizes same-sex marriage. It’s call the progression of humankind.
Here’s to that better day.
on Jun 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 AM
The sport is MORE than ready for an out gay man. Yes, hatred and violence are very real and very tragic possibilities – but the first openly gay active NFL player will give 150% instead of 110%, just to overcome these – and he’ll kick some serious ass in the process.
Never underestimate a person who’s got something to prove.