Saturday, June 05, 2010



Australian footballer banned from playing after writing that homosexual sportsmen should not "come out"

We read:
"An Australian sportsman has been suspended by his club over homophobic comments he made in a newspaper column. Australian Rules star Jason Akermanis had used his comment piece in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper to urge gay players to 'stay in the closet'.

Akermanis, 33, has been criticised over the column, in which argued that the deeply traditional, Gaelic football-style sport was not ready for its first openly gay player.

He wrote: 'Imagine the publicity associated with a current player admitting he's gay. It would be international news and could break the fabric of a club.'

Source

He was clearly motivated by a concern for the best interests of his sport rather than by any animus towards homosexuals -- but you are not allowed to offer any such arguments, it seems.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And when are such people and clubs ever ready? It's always "at the appropriate time" or words to that effect.
Why don't they just accept that some players are GAY and get on with it. The truth can be liberating!

Anonymous said...

And would probably be most illuminating!

Anonymous said...

Maybe they're scared that most of the team might "come out" as gay if given the "green light" (or is that the "pink light") - how embarrassing and traumatic for that archetypal Aussie so-called "macho image" (albeit many gays have long tried to emulate the image that turns them on - ie. uber/macho males).

Bobby said...

"Why don't they just accept that some players are GAY and get on with it. The truth can be liberating!"

---I agree with you. Unless Jason Akermanis is willing to live in the closet, he has no moral authority to ask others to do the same.

With that said, suspending him from playing was a bit too much.

Aspergers.life said...

Suppose the headline had read:

"Australian footballer banned from playing after writing that homosexual sportsmen should 'come out'"

Imagine the outrage.

Anonymous said...

I hate that "Brit" tradition where all the team members sit in a "hot-tub" and look like they're engaged in a circle jerk.

I know it's an old Brit tradition from the "public school" boarding days but maybe that's one of the reasons many Americans look upon the Brits with a suspicious eye.

Anonymous said...

VERY suspicious eye indeed! Just wait until they have to install all the different locker rooms and bathrooms for all the different gender classes they've invented, such as the very weird "transgenders", whatever they are. They even have a class for those who are simply "sexually confused"!

Personally, i think they could make life easier for everyone if they simply made a huge locker room with a sign saying, "FREAKS".

Anonymous said...

nope, the sign should say "REFUGE FROM BIGOTS"