King was introduced to the crowd as “one of America’s greatest sports icons and social justice pioneers.” She didn’t throw from the mound, but still showed nice form:

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Kate Levering and Serena Williams on set of 'Drop Dead Diva'

Pro tennis legend Serena Williams guest stars on this season’s Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime, and Outsports snagged an exclusive photo of her with one of the show’s stars, Kate Levering. Williams plays a lawyer representing Brandy Norwood’s character in a custody case against law firm head honcho Jay Parker (Josh Stamberg). Fresh off his win at the GLAAD Awards last Saturday, show creator and executive producer Josh Berman told Outsports:

It was amazing.  She was a total pro.  The actors loved having her on set.  In fact, I hear that one of the actors is going to the gym with her after she’s done shooting.

The season premiere of Drop Dead Diva is June 3 on Lifetime.

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Hat tip to Deadspin. 

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Former NFL player David Kopay represents 1976, the year he gave an interview to The Advocate. He had come out the previous year, becoming the first athlete from one of the big four sports leagues to come out after retiring. Tennis legend Billie Jean King represents 1981, the year she held a press conference to announce she is a lesbian.

Again, it’s a powerful statement for the Advocate to name three athletes to their list. Galindo was an inspired choice; While  higher-profile athletes have come out, he did so while he was still competing in his sport (winning a national title as an openly gay man).

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Welcome Martina to Twitter. Her handle is, as it should be, @Martina.

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She will be one of two professional athletes this season, with Green Bay Packer wide receiver Donald Driver joining her. Gladys Knight, Sherri Shepherd, Melissa Gilbert and a bunch of other D-list “stars” round out the cast.

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This year, as they have in the past, Sports Illustrated has paired up a model with various male pro athletes. In their latest issue, Bar Rafaeli teams up with Chris Paul (after the jump), Rafael Nadal and Michael Phelps. Of course, while the women wear the smallest bikinis they can get their hands on, the men wear full shorts. At least Phelps sports his skin-tight Speedos (even if they are short-length and black, to hide “the bulge”).

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Giving gays and lesbians the right to marry isn’t just a gay rights issue; it is a human rights issue. It is about equal rights and protection under the law for all human beings. Quite simply, it is the right thing to do. It most certainly is a secular issue and not a religious one.

One does not need to be a Christian in order to fall in love and want to marry, straight or gay, otherwise atheists would not be allowed to marry, right? Marriage can be and often is a religious celebration but legally speaking, it is a contract between two people who promise to love each other. …

You say it is a choice to be gay; do you mean to say you had feelings for women as well as men and chose men? That might explain your certainty on the issue. The feelings one has for either gender are most certainly not a choice, they simply are; the butterflies that hit you in the gut are not a choice, they are just there. The choice is whether or not one acts on such feelings.

Sports Illustrated tennis writer Jon Wertheim said that Court’s comments did not draw much attention at the event itself, saying players and officials were “largely mute.”

Some of you were discouraged and saw this as everyone ran screaming from controversy. Others were encouraged and felt as though silence meant that Court was seen as someone far in the margins, unworthy of a response. A few thought the opposite: maybe this was an indication that perhaps her views are more widely held than media types assumed.

My guess is that most people did not see a tennis tournament as a vehicle for discussing a social issue like same-sex marriage and preferred to not say anything. Thankfully, Navratilova saw this as precisely the right time to call out Court for her homophobia at the time when people would be paying attention.

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Brian Healey is captain of the men’s tennis team at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont.

By Brian Healey

I came out to two of my best friends on one of Saint Michael’s most storied days of revelry. P-Day at Saint Mike’s is our answer to the traditional “Spring Weekend” before finals. It feels like a big music video shoot for one of those bands with Miley Cirus’ brother in it. Picture a lot of sweaty, boozed-up kids running around eating, drinking, and being merry in a way only the last party weekend of the year can inspire.

It was the end of my freshman year, and I finally figured it was time to tell my friends what most of them already knew. When I finally worked up the courage to say it, there were a lot of tears and hugs and one very well timed spin of that classic record “It’s Raining Men” by a local radio station that I swear must have been listening to the conversation I was having. It obviously felt pretty nice, and being the small community, the news gradually disseminated itself through my friends and acquaintances alike.

And it was fine. Even the friends I’d been worried about telling were OK. My best friend Amanda was a little disappointed, simply for the fact she’d always thought I’d come around, realize we were meant to be together, and live happily ever after; what would any good coming out story be without one heartbroken female? She and I are still together in the sense that we’re the closets of friends, there’s just no delusions of marriage any more, at least on my part.

Telling my parents was difficult, but for the best, and I can happily say my relationship with them has never been stronger. To my surprise, my mother was surprised when I told her. All the “girl friends” I’d had throughout high school, it seems, were mistaken for girlfriends. I’m from a pretty small town in Western Massachusetts called Ware, and it’s pretty fair to say that four-wheelin’ and puttin’-down Bud heavies in the back of your pick-up are the sort of activity that seem to define my generation’s idea of a good time here. And even though my parents are townies, they’re really intelligent, loving people and have never given me anything but support.

For as long as I can remember I’ve known I was gay. I can remember a particular affinity for the Red Ranger and Jonathan Taylor Thomas in his “Home Improvement” days. One of my cousins — who also turned out to be gay –  and I grew up obsessed with reruns of “Golden Girls” and “The Nanny.” How anybody missed out on those telltale signals is beyond me, but I digress.

My experience as a gay athlete has actually been overwhelmingly positive, especially the past spring and fall seasons. Tennis seems to be a pretty accepting body of people, and my teammates at Saint Mike’s are a bunch of really goofy, really nice dudes.

I never really had to come out to them, because SMC is really small and chances are people know who you are and at least one personal detail about you even if you’ve never been formally introduced.

One of my best friends on the team or anywhere is a guy named Chris. He’s possibly the most loving, kindhearted person I know. He’s a junior, and one of the people I’ll miss most next year. To reference P-Day once more, this past year I was up later than anyone else on campus. One time I left him a dramatic, drunken-feelings voice mail about how much I appreciate he and the other guys on the team. The next day I woke up to a voice mail from Chris saying some really nice things about how much he and the rest of the team would support me no matter what. I won’t ever forget how validated that made me feel, as a man, a  teammate and an athlete.

This past year I was lucky enough to be involved in a project at Saint Mike’s as a part of the “It Gets Better” campaign that involved a lot of students, athletes, and administrators rallying around the cause. Though I’m sure there are other gay athletes at SMC, I don’t happen to know any of them personally. I don’t know any other gay athletes around the NE-10 Conference either, but I’ve never experienced any negativity around the subject and I don’t ever expect to. I hope the video, at the very least, spoke to an athlete at or elsewhere who’s struggling with their sexual identity or with fitting in.

It was one of the most rewarding activities I’ve ever been a part of, and I feel very lucky to have been a part of it, and we had an overwhelmingly positive response.  It makes me really proud to have been a part of the production and a character in the video that reached more people than we ever though it would.

We may be a bunch of granola munching, brown clog wearing hippies in Vermont, but to me it seems like Vermonters are a more laid back, caring breed, and I couldn’t be happier that I chose to spend some of the best years of my life in the Green Mountain State.

Brian Healey, 21, is a Media Studies, Journalism, and Digital Arts Major and Spanish Minor at Saint Michael’s College. He is captain of the men’s tennis team. He can be contacted via email (bhealey@mail.smcvt.edu), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Brian.Healey.SMC) or Twitter (bheals11).

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“It was just a rainbow-coloured hairband,” Robson said. “I didn’t see anything about a protest today. I wore it because I believe in equal rights for everyone. That’s it.”

As we reported earlier, Margaret Court has come under fire for anti-gay statements. One group has asked that rainbow flags fly over the Aussie Open court named after her. Robson said the hair ribbon was not in response to Court, though she knew about Court’s statements.

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