“I don’t believe in taking rights away from people, and I could never support a proposal that will tear apart families,” explains Tewksbury.  “I’m proud to call New Hampshire my home.  We are the Live Free or Die state, and that means something to me.  Our state’s leaders have never pried into the private lives of its citizens, and they shouldn’t start now.”

In the years since he left baseball, Tewksbury has been active in the world of philanthropy, with a particular focus on caring for children in need.  That motivation drove him to join Standing Up for New Hampshire Families. “We need to do all we can to protect our children and support all families, that’s why my wife and I are getting involved.”

Tewksbury spent 13 seasons in Major League baseball after being drafted by the New York Yankees in 1986. He spent time with six different clubs. His most successful stint was with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1989 to 1994. He’s in the top 500 all-time in career wins, with 110; His career ERA was 3.92.

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“We are not going to just lay down, we come to play,” the message read. “Who the hell do you think we are the DALLAS COWGIRLS OR THOSE GAYBIRDS FROM PHILLY…NO WE ARE THE NEW YORK GIANTS.”

The most offensive part has to be the fact that he referred to the New York Giants as “we.” I don’t remember seeing Mainor out there in freezing cold making any tackles. I don’t remember seeing Mainor catch any touchdowns. No, Mainor was in a nice, warm party sipping who-knows-what and stuffing his face with pigs in a blanket. “They” are the New York Giants, Mr. Mainor.

Second is what’s gotten Mainor into so much trouble: Calling the Philadelphia Eagles “Gaybirds.” It doesn’t help that he calls their other NFC East rival the Dallas “Cowgirls,” but that term is thrown around so much it’s lost most of its impact. Of course, the implication is that gay people don’t “come to play” and don’t make big plays and hard hits. Gays are fairies, flitting about the shopping mall. Maybe Mainor would like to learn a lesson about that from Esera Tuaolo.

The third troubling piece is the requisite non-apology:

Here’s where things get interesting: According to Mainor, he authored only part of the post. He claims a “friend” sat at the computer and punched in the “gaybirds from Philly” line before it went public.

“I have to take full responsibility because it was under my name,” Mainor told The Star-Ledger on Monday. “I have no excuse, other than me not looking before he did send the post.”

Are you kidding? Who types part of a Tweet (but doesn’t submit it), then walks into the other room while someone else sneaks up on the computer, adds a homophobic comment, and submits the Tweet? The excuse is even worse than Anthony Weiner’s!

Hat tip to Matt M.

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Now calling himself ‘gay,’ Goddard ventured to the NOH8 campaign’s third anniversary party last week at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd., where he was inspired to “activism of my own.” The result was this slam poem, titled ‘Yes we can but no we haven’t,‘ written by Goddard for a class project on marriage equality. He performed the poem at a Long Beach coffee house.

The kid’s got a fantastic message and some mega skeelz…

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Johnson with his family in 2000, and with his mom and safe schools advocate in 2009.

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history.

Football, 2000. OK, it’s is a bit of a cheat: This moment is really two moments that each elevated an important story in our history. In April 2000, New England-based Bay Windows printed the story of Masconomet (Mass.) High School football player Corey Johnson. Written by Peter Cassels, the story was a shocker: A high school football player who came out to his team…and lived to tell about it. Not only did he survive, he thrived on the team as his teammates embraced Johnson as they had for years before. Outsports quickly picked up on the story as did others; Weeks later, on April 30, 2000, the New York Times published a front-page story by Robert Lipsyte entitled, “Icon Recast: Support for a Gay Athlete.”

It was Lipsyte’s article on the eve of the Millenium March on Washington that catapulted Johnson to national prominence. Lipsyte had been tipped on the story by Cassels. Lipsyte said he got the story on the New York Times page A1 because Johnson was speaking at the Millenium March that weekend – it was the news peg he needed to land the story on the paper’s front page. The next day, Johnson joined hundreds of thousands of people in Washington DC to demand equality for gay people.

While the fact that a football player is gay was surprising to many, it was the support Johnson received from his team that shocked most. From the Bay Windows piece:

Johnson tells two stories. The second game of the 1999 season was against rival Winfield High School. During the week leading up to the game, its captain was using anti-gay rhetoric and epithets. “The coach told his players he could not play. I found that out the day of the game.”

When Johnson walked on the field, the Winfield player across from him said, “Faggot, we’re going to kill you, you fucking homo.” “I just started laughing because I had come out to my football team and my parents and this one kid thinks he’s going to intimidate me. I went back to the huddle and I told the team what just happened. The other co-captain, said, ‘Don’t worry Corey, we have your back.’ We won 25-to-0.”

Later in the season they defeated Weston High School. On the bus ride home the team sang. “Somebody said let’s sing a song for Corey. They started singing the Village People’s ‘YMCA’ and, later, ‘It’s raining men.’ Then they started chanting ‘GSA!’ I got up and bowed and everyone started laughing.”

Johnson said between all the media attention he got in the spring of 2000, he received about 10,000 emails and letters in just the first year; He has gotten many more since. While he has read every single one, he has not been able to respond to them all in part because he was so young at the time and he just “couldn’t be these people’s therapist.”
Among those 10,000 emails were a couple from men who claimed to be closeted professional athletes. They told Johnson they were deeply inspired by his story of acceptance. Looking back, Johnson wonder just how inspired they were: “It couldn’t have been that moving, because they didn’t come out.”

Johnson told Lipsyte at the time: ”Someday I want to get beyond being that gay football captain, but for now I need to get out there and show these machismo athletes who run high schools that you don’t have to do drama or be a drum major to be gay. It could be someone who looks just like them.”

Over 10 years later, Johnson has gone way beyond. He is currently a director of programs at GLAAD where he has worked with the WWE. He is chairman of Community Board 4 in Manhattan, where he is the city’s youngest community board chair. He is also political director for Towleroad.com and is heavily active in the Democratic Party having worked on various political campaigns. Most recently Johnson was named one of 40 under 40 to watch in New York City government.

The thing that I’m most passionate about is fighting for LGBT people’s equal rights. Hopefully we gain full equality long before 20 years form now. But between now and then, it’s what I love to do and what I feel most connected to. For a good part of my professional life I’ve been able to be a professional LGBT activist. To get paid to do this type of work is really gratifying. I get paid to do what I love. Most people don’t get paid to do activism, so I’m really grateful for that. I’ll be involved in public policy and public life in some way.

He’s also been that gay football captain as an adult. He was one of the founding members of the New York Gay Football League in 2005 (and was the league commissioner after me), he won the Gay Games gold medal in football in 2006, and he was the co-captain of two New York Warriors teams that won the Gay Superbowl in 2006 and 2007. While he hasn’t played football in over a year, he is still a devout Boston sports fan and ran the New York City Marathon last autumn.
In his recent memoirs, An Accidental Sportswriter, Lipsyte remembers Johnson’s story:

I thought that because of Corey’s age and the iconograophy of high school football, this story was advancing the stories of [Ed] Gallagher and Billy Bean. …

For gay activists trying to shatter stereotypes, Corey Johnson was a rare find, a bright, vivacious quick study who also wrestled and played lacrosse and baseball as he won three varsity letters on a winning football team. He was also conscious of his role.

And then about his hopes and expectations for the story:

After the story ran, Ed Gallagher called me, ecstatic. “This Corey is a pioneer, a leader, but he’s up against the hypocritical right-wing hate mongers who want to punish people for being human. I say there are no straights or gays, just ‘strays.’”

We both thought the dialogue would begin now. This one was the Big Story, a high school football captain rallying the jocks, smashing the stereotypes. …

It never happened. They didn’t want to hear about gay players. It was off message, it complicated the mainstream fantasy.

Whether it opened closet doors for professional athletes or not, Johnson’s story as told by Cassels and Lipsyte lifted stereotypes, changed dialogue and affected 10,000 people enough to write to the 18-year-old. Plus, it launched Johnson’s important career fighting for gay equality.

Sounds pretty successful to me.

For more information:

• Bay Windows article – the first about Johnson
• New York Times article: ‘Icon Recast’
• Lipsyte’s follow-up column on Johnson’s story
• New York Gay Football League
• Corey Johnson: Rising star, 40 under 40
• Corey’s Facebook page

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College football, 2009. In 2000, Brian K. Sims was the co-captain of the Bloomsberg University football team that finished the season as the Div. 2 national runners-up. He was also openly gay on the team. While many today still claim it’s “impossible” to come out in football, Sims did it nine years ago in a conservative part of one of that year’s political ping-pong states.

It wasn’t until April 27, 2009, that Sims told his story publicly. Outsporter Larry Felzer connected Sims, a professional colleague, to us at Outsports and we jumped on the opportunity to tell his story for the first time. Despite it being almost a decade old, the response was overwhelming. Few stories in Outsports history have garnered so many comments. Sims’ email inbox filled to the brim within 24 hours…and he continues to get emails two years later. It shows the unique power of football in American culture that a 9-year-0ld story could resonate so strongly.

Sims has used his new platform for good. He has spoken about his college-football experiences at dozens of schools. And he has doubled his efforts for equality in Pennsylvania. The legacy of Sims’ public coming-out will be felt for years to come.

For more information:

• Outsports’ original article on Brian Sims
• Brian Sims’ Web site

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Openly gay rugby player Gareth Thomas, cricketer Steven Davies and straight ally Ben Cohen are among those athletes expected to attend.  Missing will be any prominent soccer players. Reports Pink News:

Organizers hoped that prominent footballers would be among the invitees. However, this is the traditional footballers’ ‘holiday season’ and many are not in the country.

Instead, some ‘older faces’ from the footballing world are expected to attend, along with chief executives from sports associations.

This is still a big deal, since we now have a head of government actively coming out against homophobia in sports. Thomas was also a  guest at the recent royal wedding. A petition drive against homophobia in sports has attracted some key support, Pink Paper reports:

More than 1,100 people have now signed the Government’s Charter Against Homophobia in Sport, which calls for anyone and everyone with an interest or involvement in sport to unite in a common cause to tackle homophobia and transphobia in sport.

The Football Association, England & Wales Cricket Board, Lawn Tennis Association, Rugby Football League and Rugby Football Union, together with the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, were amongst the first signatories.

It was be great if U.S. politicians could do something similar. President Obama is a huge basketball fan and a Chicago resident. He ought to play in the annual Sam Coady Roundball Classic held each spring in Chicago, but I won’t hold my breath.

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“When I run, as you see my record, I run to win,” he said at a news conference Monday in Mount Holly in Burlington County. “I’m slower than I used to be, so you can probably keep up, but I’m going to be running.”

Lewis has been pretty quiet over the last decade (not a bad thing given his butchering of the national anthem 18 years ago). But speculation about his sexual orientation has already come back just hours after his announcement. Speculation has circulated since the early 1980s that Lewis is gay, with many claiming that perception cost the Olympic champ many endorsement deals. Comments on various stories on the Web raised the question of Lewis’ sexual orientation. If he is in fact gay, running for State Senate sure isn’t a great way to stay in the shadows of the closet.

He was my first sports hero; For that alone I wish him much luck and success.

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We’ll be following Scott’s race in the coming months.

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Gay Games athletes wearing dog tags to protest the DADT policy.

Really big and historic news out of  Washington, where the U.S. Senate today voted, 65-31, to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. A filibuster against repeal was defeated, 63-33, setting the stage for the final vote. The bill has already passed the House, and President Obama said he will sign it. It will take a few months for new policies to be implemented, but DADT is DEAD.

This is a vote a long time in coming and five years from now people will wonder what all the fuss is about. Polls of military personnel show a large majority support ditching DADT and its defeat was inevitable; however, repeal seemed dead just a week ago so it’s a surprise that it happened now.

My guess is that practically little will change in the sense that gays and lesbians in the military won’t all suddenly decide to come out in their unit. That’s not how the coming out process works. But from now on, gays and lesbians serving in the military needn’t fear they will be discharged by their government simply because of their sexual orientation.

The real heroes in this fight were the hundreds of LGBT activists who fought tirelessly against this discriminatory policy for years, even when the cause seemed hopeless. They deserve all our thanks.

We would love to hear from readers, especially active or retired military, on how they feel now that DADT will soon be history.

This cartoon from Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says it all:

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Ever since Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball there have been players who are gay. That is the same with our armed forces. This will never change. The question is whether or not LGBT can be open about their sexual orientation and remain in the profession they truly love.

This has been the issue at the top of my mind for years. Athletes know they’re showering with gay guys, so why do they care if that person is openly gay or not? Eric Anderson pointed it to me years ago: Guilt by association. If one athlete on the team is gay, the team will be labeled by some a “gay team.” Crazy how these big, macho guys couldn’t handle someone thinking they might be on a “gay team.”

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