French amateur soccer team FC Chooz is refusing to let Yoann Lemaire rejoin the team he’s played with for 14 years, and which he resigned from in protest last year when his teammates made homophobic comments in front of television cameras. Chooz, who is gay, must be punished “to help the football world to realize that homophobia is as bad as racism and anti-Semitism,” according to a letter signed by club president Frédéric Pretty. [via]
That Guy...
Who, not whom. The players are the subject of the subordinate clause.
Queer Supremacist
From the nation that gave the world the Maginot Line…
They’re showing the world that homophobia is as bad as racism and anti-semitism…by not letting the gay player back in and keeping in the breeders who insulted him?
L.
@Queer Supremacist: I’m puzzled, because I can’t actually find the quote in the linked article, or in the original story – maybe I missed it.
Mind you, what I could find, however, is possibly worse: the club’s director is reported to have said that, “it would be discrimination to take sanction against a man who’s entitled to speak about homosexuals”.
While I believe that the First Amendment protects all speech, even – possibly regrettably – hate speech, I also do firmly believe in equal rights. If the hater is allowed to speak, the gay man should be allowed to play. They can’t have it both ways, and enjoy the double standard.
L.
(Oh, and – not to defend the French or anything, but the football authorities there *did* kick out a team which had refused to play against an openly gay team, so some people in that federation have some morals.)
nineinchnail
Bloody frogs!!!
wallish
Sorry to be a grammar nazi, but it’s WHO, not WHOM.
Matthew
I suppose the only team he wouldn’t get kicked off would be the one with his mates, which reminds me I have some great no-cost ideas for a friendly game:
http://www.weekendnotes.com/soccer-match-at-aberfeldie-oval/