The Progressive Puppy

Laudable "You Can Play Project" Sets a High Goal (videos)

The inclusive message of the You Can Play Project is detailed in its mission statement:  "You Can Play is dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes - without regard to sexual orientation.  You Can Play works to guarantee that athletes are given a fair opportunity to compete, judged by other athletes and fans alike, only by what they contribute to the sport or their team’s success."

Below is a video in support of gay hockey players, followed by a moving testimonial from a young hockey fan.

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YCPP compels us to consider the lack of tolerance in professional football.  Do you suppose the NFL will ever be brave enough to take a similar stand?  With few exceptions, football teams and fans seem to identify with born-again showmen like Tim Tebow, who is associated with the anti-gay group Focus on the Family.  (Not long ago Tebow refused to participate in the "It Gets Better" campaign, aimed at supporting LGBT youths who are literally being bullied to death.)

Ty Schalter writes on Bleacher Report:  In 2006, Esera Tuaolo was speaking to an audience of about 200 NFL players and employees, most of whom were incoming rookies. His topic: the bitter nine-year struggle he faced as a closeted gay man in the homophobic NFL.  Tuaolo was telling the impressionable young players that the hundreds of men he played with and against never knew his orientation. His teammates denigrated and abused gay people as a matter of locker-room course, unaware their barbs were slicing one of their own to shreds...  The SEC (Southeastern Conference) remained racially segregated until 1970, when Randall Cunningham's older brother, USC tailback Sam, dominated Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The SEC head coaching fraternity didn't admit its first African-American member until 2004—one year after the Supreme Court struck down (primarily) Southern laws that criminalized homosexuality...  But just as it took football too long to reflect the broad social acceptance of civil rights for all people regardless of race, it's taken football too long to accept that sexuality has nothing to do with mental toughness or on-field performance.  The opposite of this is true; there's nothing tough about hate. There's nothing strong about intolerance.  Calling homosexual men "faggots" doesn't make you a better football player.  (It doesn't make you a better person, either.)

CNN's Roland Martin Tweets In Support Of Anti-Gay Violence

But he claims he was "joking" when he Tweeted that sports fans should beat the shit "ish" out of gay males ...

Trudy Ring reports for The Advocate:  CNN commentator Roland Martin made it a not-so-super Sunday with a tweet and a Facebook posting widely perceived to be homophobic, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has called on the network to fire him.  GLAAD reports that after retailer H&M’s Super Bowl commercial featuring soccer player David Beckham, Martin tweeted to his nearly 95,000 Twitter followers, "If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl."

Equality activists at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation quickly responded to Martin's call for violence toward "dudes" who appreciate Beckham's pecs and abs by tweeting: "Advocates of gay bashing have no place at @CNN."  The organization is now asking for Martin's resignation.  (Sign the petition at Change.org.)

Heterosexists watching the game might snort and ask what's the big deal.  It's not complicated:  Roland Martin has every right to act icky and holier-than-thou around queer folk - but crude statements that appear to promote violence can incite hate crimes and lead to anti-gay bullying in schools. 

In any event, this isn't Martin's first stroll down Homophobia Lane.  From GLAAD:  

Last year, Tracy Morgan said during a stand-up routine that if his son were gay he would 'stab him.' Morgan later apologized and worked with GLAAD to send positive messages to parents and LGBT youth.  Morgan understood how his words could influence his fans and put youth in danger, while Martin defended Tracy Morgan's original remarks...  At a time when the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that violence against LGBT people was up 23%, we need people in the public eye to speak out against the dangers of anti-LGBT violence, not openly encourage it.  Martin also has used his platform to misrepresent religious views about LGBT people. Far from the church being uniformly anti-gay, as Martin has claimed, LGBT people are welcomed just as they are into the full life of the church, in congregations and entire denominations across the United States. Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopal denominations welcome LGBT folks, as well as many congregations from a variety of denominations.

Perhaps Martin would feel more appreciated spreading his anti-LGBT views for Rupert Murdoch's GOP-pandering media consortium.  (That would be Fox News, home of far right pundits, climate change deniers, religious fanatics, conspiracy theorists, anti-choice zealots, Obama haters, and of course run-of-the-mill homobigots.)

Gay Super Bowl Ad Stolen From MAD-tv Skit

It's not offensive because it's gay, it's offensive because it's lame.

Fox News reports that CBS is still reviewing that Super Bowl ad submitted by the gay dating service ManCrunch:  The 30-second spot shows two men excitedly watching the game, before their hands brush as they both reach into a bowl of chips. Suddenly, the two begin making out, much to the shock of a guy sitting close by.  According to a rep for the dating site, which operates under the slogan "Where Many Many Many Men Come Out to Play," the ad was submitted on Monday, January 18th.  When the site followed up on the status of the ad, they were told by CBS that "the spot hadn’t been officially approved yet" by network standards, and that "all the Super Bowl spots were sold out."  ... ManCrunch officials said they believe CBS has no intention of airing a commercial for their gay dating service, "but do not want to officially reject the spot out of fear there may be a backlash from gay advocacy groups."

The commercial is a mess.  Not only does it have little to do with same-sex dating, its one joke is a shameless knockoff of an old MAD-tv sketch.  CBS will never agree to run this poorly produced tripe, whose raison d'etre seems to be shock value.  I'd be surprised if any gay folks were involved in creating the spot - and that includes the actors.  Below is the ManCruch ad, followed by the much funnier comedy skit that inspired it. (Really, is this the best they can come up with?)

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UPDATE: The ManCrunch commercial has just been rejected by CBS.  The network promptly issued this statement:  "After reviewing the ad - which is entirely commercial in nature - our Standards and Practices department decided not to accept this particular spot.  As always, we are open to working with the client on alternative submissions."

Misleading Super Bowl Ad with Tim Tebow ("Choice" in question.)

Nothing says Super Bowl Party like anti-choice activists sharing personal stories with a hundred million TV viewers.

According to the Denver Post, former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow will be starring in a 30-second television spot which will air during the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 7th.  He'll be spreading a "pro-life" and "family affirming" message alongside his mother, Pam Tebow, paid for by the anti-gay bigots at Focus on the Family.  (FOF founder James Dobson is well known for his homophobic declarations.  In 2005 he said same-sex nuptials would lead to "marriage between daddies and little girls" and "between a man and his donkey.")  Electa Draper writes on The Post: The Colorado Springs-based media ministry shot the ad with the Tebows on Tuesday in Orlando, Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger said Friday.  It is set to air before and again during the CBS broadcast of the football championship from Dolphin Stadium near Miami.  Tebow and his mother will share one of their positive personal stories, Schneeberger said, but he wouldn't reveal which one. One contender is Pam Tebow's decision to carry her son to term despite a life-threatening pregnancy in the Philippines, where she and her husband, Bob, were serving as Christian missionaries.  (Several years ago she told the Gainesville Sun:  "They thought I should have an abortion to save my life, from the beginning all the way through the seventh month.")  (Tebow) agreed to appear in the ad because the issue of life is one he and his family feel strongly about, Schneeberger said.  Schneeberger wouldn't say how much it cost to make the ad or the price of air time. However, TNS Media Intelligence reported Monday that 30-second Super Bowl commercial slots, which will reach an estimated 100 million viewers, are selling for $2.5 million to $2.8 million... 

You'd think a good Christian outfit like Focus on the Family could find a better way to spend that huge chunk of cash.  Like helping fellow believers in Haiti whose country has been destroyed.  Or even paying their own employees, 200 hundred of whom were laid off a little over a year ago.

And by the way, if Mrs. Tebow plans to share the story of her difficult pregnancy in the Philippines, where she says doctors "advised" her to have an abortion and she "chose" life," it should noted that ALL abortions are illegal in that country, and have been since 1930.  From Wiki:  There is no law in the Philippines that expressly authorizes abortions in order to save the woman's life; and the general provisions which do penalize abortion make no qualifications if the woman's life is endangered. 

So even if those Philippine doctors had felt she might die without an abortion, they couldn't legally perform one.  Which means she had no "choice" at all, except maybe a back alley abortion.  And that, ladies and germs, is the position Focus on the Family wants American women to be in:  No choice at all.  (Pictured Top: Tebow with Mom, Bottom: with Girlfriend)