Sniff, sniff… Do you smell that? That’s the smell of putridly skewed analogy courtesy of Irish Sports Minister Edwin Poots! The politico recently proclaimed his confusion over queer rugby teams:
I just cannot fathom why people see the necessity to develop an apartheid in sport… It would be unacceptable to produce an all-black rugby team or an all-white team or an all-Chinese team. To me it’s equally unacceptable to produce an all-homosexual rugby team and I find it remarkable that people who talk so much about inclusivity and about having an equal role in society would then go down the route of exclusion.
Gay team founder Declan Lavery dismissed Poots’ assessment: “When the club was set up it welcomed members regardless of their age, creed, religion, sexual orientation or whatever, and that’s how it continues”. See, Poots? You can play, too!
praenomenal
Truth be told he does have a point.
Dan
Actually, for once, it is nice to see a sport so accepting of gays that the Governmental Minister for Sports annoyed that gays would think they needed their own team.
hells kitchen guy
I think he’s right and applaud him for saying it – and exposing himself to the p.c. police.
Bill Perdue
Edwin Poots is not Irish nor is he connected in any way to the Irish government in the Republic of Ireland.
He’s a member of the ruling English colonialist party in English occupied northern Ireland, the Democratic (sic) Unionist Party (DUP), a hate group camouflaged as a party. The DUP promotes hate campaigns against the Irish and GLBT folks, has deep roots in fascist politics and is closely connected to murder squads. The DUP is rightly compared to ‘bible fascists’ like Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps.
In fact the DUP systematically excludes Irish people from jobs, housing and educational opportunities in their own country, illegally occupied by the English. Their repression of the Irish is an example of real apartheid, just like the apartheid system imposed on Palestinians by zionist thugs and colonialists.
No wonder right wing pinheads like hells kitchen chickenhawk admire scum like Poots and the DUP bigots so much.
vincent
The Minister should talk with the gay community, and ask us why we feel the need at times to create social and sporting oportunities within the community in N Ireland. Or maybe he should discuss this with all the out gay sports people across a range of different sporting events and competitions in the mainstream….ah no he can’t because on the whole, there just aren’t any…and why not?
Judas
The first three posts here are naive at best – and at worst, not coming from a loving place.
The truth is that this Evangelical christian minister is more than happy to support exclusion and division when it matches his agenda which is solidly anti-gay and emphatically anti Catholic. He is the bigot of whom he speaks.
And how’s this for the pc police: he and his ilk (including those in the US) should be crucified.
Ingo
Is that a joke?
What about the fact, that there are no openly gay football-players in the teams?
So tell me, Mr. Minister, why that is NOT a form of apartheid, when possible gay football-players are forced to stay in the closet???
I guess that’s also a sporting apartheid that there are no mixed teams of male and female football-players?
Mr. Minister you are too dumb to see what is cause and was is effect!
hells kitchen guy
Vincent, Ingo: He’s not talking about pro teams.
Bill Purdue: He’s still part of a democratically elected regime, even if you don’t believe that the carved-out colony has any integral validity. That’s a different post.
In NYC, the gay rugby team has some straight members and regularly plays straight teams. I think rugby is the one sport where gay and straight members are well integrated. Not sure why it’s unique.