At the center of the Venn diagram of toxic masculinity and institutional homophobia is professional sports.
And while gay athletes remain deeply closeted and some (certainly not all) sports fans continue to exemplify the very worst of human behavior, that doesn’t mean the uphill battle is being lost completely.
Related: Netflix destroys homophobe with just 3 simple words
Increasingly, teams and leagues around the world have adopted policies of inclusion and celebration of LGBTQ players and fans, and that’s no small step.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Over the weekend, Major League Baseball shared a photo of their official Pride float, along with the hashtag “#Pride2018.”
#Pride2018 pic.twitter.com/3cSwsNvq02
— MLB (@MLB) June 24, 2018
Naturally, the small-minded complaints started rolling in.
Among those who took issue with the float was one @CalebMcCreedy.
We’d post what, exactly, he said, had he not been shamed into deleting his comment by the MLB account itself.
“No agenda,” they wrote. “Just peace and acceptance. Bye.”
No agenda, just peace and acceptance. Bye.
— MLB (@MLB) June 24, 2018
Unfortunately, a scroll through the comments reveals that Caleb’s was just one of many, many negative responses.
But still, we applaud the MLB for telling him to take a seat.
Kangol
Gun-toting gamer, looks like a piece of work. Too bad he can’t get help for his hatred of gay people and has to lash out. How much do you want bet he supports the monster in the White House too?
BikerPup
Its usually the loudmouths that protest these things that have issues because they are so deep into their closet. I hope he keeps loving baseball and learns to love himself, all of himself.
Kinsey6
You’re right.
Allow me to tell a story…
Many years ago I was mercilessly bullied on my high school graduation night by the brother of a good friend from my high school class. His brother was a few years older than us, and was hanging around our group because he had just gotten kicked out of the military. The rumor was that he was caught “in flagrante delicto” with a member of the Bovidae family.
No, no… The Bovidaes weren’t neighbors or anything. He got caught doing it with a sheep! LOL!
Anyway, a group of about a dozen of us were having a small party at a mutual friend’s house the night of our high school graduation. For no apparent reason at all he suddenly lit in to me and began calling me some of the most vile and disgusting homophobic things imaginable. His language was ugly, ferocious, cruel, vicious, abhorrent, brutal, and venomous. And it all happened for no reason, completely out of the blue, and he went on spewing his poisonous rhetoric and name-calling for probably a good half an hour as everyone looked on in shock before I finally left (right before I thought maybe he might start to get violent). This was my high school graduation night, so I didn’t want to leave, and is why I stuck around in spite of the ferocity of his language. And besides, I was also rather confused by it too because while I was openly gay (this was 1982), I hardly even knew him at all. It was pure hatred in its most raw, naked and vicious form.
So I just left and went home early.
I was good friends with his brother though, and about a week or two later, his brother (my friend) made a special trip to my house because he said he had a favor to ask me.
So what was the favor? He wanted to know if his brother could come to my next party, which was coming up in about a week. Well I was absolutely floored. Here he was asking me if I would allow this nasty, hate-filled, evil pig into my house during one of MY parties? I don’t think so!
Well, I admittedly had a reputation back then for throwing great parties. And I figured that his brother surely was thinking about how much he would like to come to one of my parties, EVEN IF he thought I was a disgusting faggot.
So my friend begged and pleaded with me to let him come, and assured me that he’d be well-behaved, AND that he would personally guarantee that his brother would be very well-behaved too. More begging and pleading with me and promises promises promises as he slowly broke down my defenses to get me to agree to allow his homophobic brother to come to my party.
Well, as much as I didn’t want to do it after what had happened on our graduation night, I got my arm twisted enough that I somehow agreed to letting him come. Don’t ask me how though. His brother (my friend) was really cute, so that probably had a lot to do with it.
So then night of the party, the both of them came, and his brother was indeed well behaved. But he kept giving me this look like I was some type of prey or something, and that made me a little nervous like he might have some trick up his sleeve. He kept saying he had something to tell me. But I had tons of people there and was busy playing host and really couldn’t care less about anything he wanted to tell me. And for a couple of hours he kept telling me periodically that he wanted to tell me something important.
Finally he caught me in a moment where I wasn’t super busy and said he really wanted to tell me something. So I said “OK what is it?”. And he said “I don’t want to tell you here, I want to tell it to you in private.”
Well Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, man… Now I have to listen to whatever shit you want to tell me and have to do it someplace where there aren’t any witnesses? How did I know he wasn’t going to physically assault me or something, maybe even worse?
So dammit I thought… I just wanted to get it over with at this point. So he said he wanted to tell me in my bedroom. Jesus, what next I thought? So fine… we go to my bedroom and he shuts the door. Now I’m really wondering what the heck is so important that he wants to tell me in private behind closed doors.
So he shuts the door and I said “OK what is it?”. And he just looks me in the eye and says: “CAN I HAVE A BLOWJOB?” (!!!).
Well I just about fell over. I was gobsmacked… Completely shocked and utterly speechless. I didn’t know what to say as I was in shock with this proposal. I’d never experienced anything like that before and didn’t have the knowledge I know now about homophobic guys and the studies which show that virtually all of them are secret closet cases who cannot deal with their same-sex desires which turn to self-loathing and often then manifest into anger and/or violence being effectuated upon innocent gay people.
So I didn’t know what to say, and besides, the last thing I’d ever do is do anything with someone who had previously treated me as if I was a POS — even if they were the most gorgeous model ever. But that didn’t apply to him anyway. I didn’t find him good looking and in fact I was very much NOT attracted to him (odd, considering his brother was super hot).
So as I’m standing there in shock with time standing still, trying to figure out some way to tell him there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell I was ever going to do anything with him, just then the door flies open and his brother (my friend) barges in on us and interjects that he wanted to leave the party.
Well thank goodness. That bit of very fortuitous timing (for me, not for him I’m sure) worked out nicely and got me off the hook since I was trying to find a civil way to tell him to go pound sand.
Then a year or so later I just happened to be walked down the street and guess who I see walking towards me coming from the opposite direction? Yeah, HIM. So we exchanged the typical “hellos” and “how are you’s?”, all the while I knew something was going to be said about that night at my party since we hadn’t seen each other since then. And sure enough, as soon as the normal pleasantries were exchanged, THAT subject came up. And he looked at me and said “Oh, and about that night at the party… I have this now”, and just then he holds up a Bible he’d been holding in his hand all along and shows the front of it to me, as if he’s now set free from his previously “detestable, revolting, perverted desires” — something I assume he thought I was still “suffering with” I guess.
Well, at that point I realized that not only was I dealing with a homophobe, but obviously a very stupid and self-loathing one at that… AND that he was now also a believer in superstitious nonsense, which I could tell he was obviously using as a way to simply try and suppress his natural desires by brainwashing himself with Bronze Age superstitions that his natural sexual orientation could be expunged simply by hiding behind the cloak of religion and convincing himself that his natural desires were all a “sin” and a perversion which could be extirpated by simply praying about it enough.
Yeah right. I knew even as a young child that praying to have your sexual orientation changed was no different than praying to have your height or skin color changed. And that’s just sad that anyone could be so desperate to change such an integral part of themselves.
I never saw him again after that. But I do know their father was also an angry homophobe himself, so maybe that just runs in his family. Today, I just feel sad for him, even considering how he ruined my high school graduation night so long ago. At least my parents loved me regardless of my sexual orientation. I would have absolutely hated having their dad.
pscheck2
Pray tell, what monster are you talking about? I only know that Trump has done more for this country than that effete grand stander, Obama!
JoeyRamone
Lol. Thanks. A good dose of sarcasm always makes my day.
kevin57
How is your 401K doing these days?
MaxTaste
Trollish posts are always amusing. Thanks!
Kangol
“More for this country”? Are you out of your mind? LOL Let’s hope we still have a country by the time “Treasonous” Trumpkin is done!
jorgecruz
Your standards must be based on bigotry, misogyny or tax credits for the wealthiest 1%. Why do these racist trolls come to this website anyway?
fur_hunter
Personally, I believe that many of the homophobic trolls are total latent closet cases. It is the old line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Kinsey6
Uh huh. If you feel like reading a story about my own personal experience, check out the one I posted a few comments above.
Wade
His comment was:
“OK, I’m done with you MLB. Don’t use your platform to push a certain agenda.
And he goes by Side Arm Serpent.
MaxTaste
Glad he’s done with them. We don’t need fans like him.