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There are idiots in every walk of life, the world of professional sports sure seems to have a great share of them. This is a baseball story and I have to admit I am not a big fan of the game, but the subject grabbed my attention.
Jason Whitlock begins his story with a tough opening, he admits he is uncomfortable with and would not compare the current gay issues with anything like what the black man has suffered. Okay, I give him that, but then he gets to the heart of the story...discrimination, and what a great story it is.
When it comes to gay men in an umpire's uniform we don't hear about them very often. Billy Van Raaphorst is a name I've never heard before, but I'm glad I know it now.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/gay-umpires-ordeal-shows-sad-state-of-sports-081310/?GT1=39002
To me he is a gay hero and deserves better than his current lot. But professional sports is played by a bunch of spoiled millionaires who get no respect from me in the first place. It seems they have no respect for one another as well, and that is really sad. I doubt if some of them can even spell the word discriminate, but they sure know how it works.
[Updated on: Mon, 23 August 2010 21:43]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I realise that I am, mostly, preaching to the choir. But this is the thing we need to be fighting. Or we need to be fighting this amongst all the other battles we should be fighting. We need LGBT heroes in all areas of life.
We also need to be careful who we set up as a hero. This hero I like. He lives an ordinary life. The Air Force colon el about to be dismissed under DADT I like. The stupid child who decided to quite her army career before DADT was repealed is not a hero, she is unfit to serve.
We need heroes.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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... very carefully just who our heroes should be.
They DO NEED TO BE ordinary folk; individuals going about their lives in no especially spectacular fashion, day-by-day, week-by-week and year-by-year; people who exemplify all that is good and just and fair and worthy about the human condition; those who might easily be the man or woman or child next door, or just down the street and quite possibly have (or could) become a teacher, a policeman or fireman (or women), our plumber or electrician, a local home-builder, a gardener or house-keeper, a chef, a waiter or waitress, a bus-boy or bus-girl, a truck- or bus-driver, a factory-labourer, a mine-worker, a lumber-jack, a rocket scientist or astral-physicist, our doctor or lawyer, a farmer, an athlete or entertainer, a geneticist or research-chemist, a counter clerk or salesperson, our husband or wife, our son or daughter; or a nod to Brody, a media personality or God forbid, even a celebrity. In other words our heroes need to be unremarkable people doing unremarkable things; people who just happen to be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered, regardless of their chosen avocation; and where their associative gender is not (and has not become) what defines them in our mind's eye. People just like the aforementioned U. S. Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach and the Minor-league Baseball Umpire Billy Van Raaphorst, or Wrangler Adam Sutton or Rugby-player Gareth Thomas; youngsters just like our very own Ashley® in *** or Jamie® in ***; or unprepossessing adults like Ricky® in *** or Timmy® late of *** and now ***, or Brent® in *** or Ron® in ***; people just like all of you here doing your very best to get by and make some sense of it all. Simple folk doing simple things and being the very best that they can be.
Our heroes NEED NOT BE manufactured or forced outings; or those hyped by the media, either for their purposes or that of others; those whose agenda is to further either their career or cause.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
[Warren, I removed all those location identifiers. Not all folk want those, you know. timmy]
[Updated on: Sat, 14 August 2010 16:25] by Moderator
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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Well said, Warren. 
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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Among the list of people in the gay world making news these days, celebrities are not often doing well. George Michael has been arrested again and I see that as a sad way to keep his name in the headlines.
But here in America we have a gay man who is quietly going about his life even though his face is on television for all to see. A former child star, Neil Patrick Harris has become eveyone's gay man since he chose to lift the curtain on his privacy.
The man has a wit and an abundance of talent which doesn't exactly make him exceptional in Hollywood. But it was just announced that Harris and his partner of six years are going to become fathers, they're having twins.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1645768/20100814/story.jhtml
The noblilty of parenthood should sit well on the shoulders of these two handsome men. The underlying urge for any man to become a parent is something to be admired and these two have both the means and the stability to do the job well. If that doesn't make them heroes I don't understand the definition of the word. Harris and Burtka deserve a standing ovation for setting an example for the gay community. Bravo.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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ray2x
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: April 2009
Messages: 430
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Personally, professional sports and media folks are all about money and image. I don't have heros in these areas, but I do follow certain sports teams and some movies. That's what I miss most about sports is that the team concept is fairly obsolete. No one wants to go to a game for the sake of seeing a good match or whatever. It's all just a waste of time now and take the highlights of the game as important. There are very good virtuous men and women who do merit news in sports and media. But the masses want the latest rants of Lidsay Lohan and how was her stay in jail, or when will Terell Owens have his first hissy fit of the NFL season. Sports, following a recent news item from the NFL, has so much to learn. A football fan wanted to have a name of a football player put on the back of her NFL jersey she bought. It's done all the time. The player's last name is used and her favorite player's last name is Gay. The official NFL site refused to put that name on her jersey, fearing that she was celebrating a lifestyle, forgetting that there was a player with that last name. So a narrow minded person took it upon him/herself to do censoring. Eventually, things were straighten out.
That's my rant.
Raymundo
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We are all absorbed by the national events and news that surround us on a daily basis. From these we must wade through the swamp of information to look for someone we admire and in doing so admit that gay heroes are hard to find.
This is a local news event that took place this past year. A crime that shocked just about everyone who read about it. But time has passed, the perpetrators are headed for a severe dose of justice and we are left with the victim.
This was not a gay hate crime, to my knowledge the victim is not gay. But this was an extreme example of bullying that got far out of hand. I am impressed with the way Michael Brewer and his family are dealing with the outcome.
The boy will definitely bear the scars of this event for the rest of his life. But he has a positive outlook on what this all means to him and how he can educate others. Bullying is a crime, Michael knows this firsthand. I say bravo, a brave lad, a local hero.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38816867/ns/local_news-w_palm_beach_fl/
[Updated on: Mon, 23 August 2010 21:57]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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Gay men in a different uniform...a sports story hero. 
Re: I agree ...and here's another gay hero to admire 
