Jocks Becoming Cheerleaders

Professional Athletes Buck Trend, Stand Up For Marriage Equality

If you’ve ever been inside a football locker room or a baseball clubhouse, then you know that they are testosterone-filled settings: muscular, sweaty guys, fresh from a game or practice, acting in ways they normally wouldn’t act in the company of the opposite sex. They are places where “boys will be boys” and “men can be men” – it’s where you will find the primal urge to be the “butchest” in the room. The last thing an athlete wants is for one of his teammates or coaches to question his manhood.

Perhaps that is why it is so rare for professional athletes to come out in support of gay equality. The football player who says gay couples should be allowed to marry may have people questioning his sexual orientation. The basketball player who makes it known he has gay friends might get some raised eyebrows. And the baseball player who advocates an end to discrimination runs the risk of turning off loyal fans (many of whom have their own irrational hang-ups about gay people).

In the last two years, however, we’ve been witness to a few brave professional athletes who’ve decided it is time to step up and speak out. They recognize that their voice can be powerful, and that if change is going to come it will come faster if they are squarely in the game instead of on the sidelines. It is interesting to note that three such individuals from the National Football League all come from the defensive side of the ball; they all have tough reputations for going out and stuffing running backs and receivers. For the Jets’ Antonio Cromartie, the Browns’ Scott Fujita and the Ravens’ Brendon Ayanbadejo, the ramifications for publicly supporting equality could have been severe. But their performance on the field belies the argument that they are anything but “all man.” When butch, hard-hitting football players start supporting gay equality, then you know you’re seeing progress.

Cromartie became the first professional football player to participate in the NOH8 Campaign, a photography project aimed at reversing California’s Proposition 8. Since November 2008 (when the proposition was passed by California voters) over 8,000 people have had their photo taken by photographer Adam Bouska in support of the campaign. In 2010, Cromartie became one of two high-profile athletes to take part.

According to NOH8 Co-founder Jeff Parshley, Cromartie and his wife Terricka reached out to the organization when the couple was visiting Los Angeles last fall. It just so happened that NOH8 was also starting production on a series of public service announcements, so Cromartie lent his voice to one with an anti-bullying message, along with the likes of Megan McCain, Gene Simmons, Denise Richards and Jeff Probst.
“We wanted to use his voice to project to his fans so that people will start to listen and hear the message,” Parshley told Compete. “They believe in equality and they wanted to make that public.”

Parshley believes that when a well-known professional athlete speaks out on an issue then it definitely sends a strong message – perhaps an even stronger message than when other celebrities do the same.

There is a bit of a taboo in the sports world when it to comes to LGBT issues,” said Parshley, explaining that it takes just one who will break the silence to eradicate that taboo. “If (fans) see that person speaking out it could encourage them to rethink (their ideas about gay people and equality).”

NOH8 has been blessed with two high-profile athletes in recent months. Hall of Fame basketball player and coach Isiah Thomas and his son Zeke posed for a NOH8 photo last summer. In terms of prominent athletes from the basketball world, they don’t get much more prominent than Thomas; he is a 12-time All Star, a two-time NBA champion, an NBA Finals MVP, and a member of the league’s 50th Anniversary All-Time Team.

Thomas’ son, a dj, had been following the campaign since its beginning and brought the elder Thomas to the studio when both happened to be in L.A.
“We posed for the NOH8 Campaign because we believe that all hate and discrimination is wrong,” the pair said on Bouska’s website. “It is time for full equality and equal rights for everyone, regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion, or gender.”

The sports world is a very new demographic being targeted by equality advocates. Compete and others – like the website Outsports and sports bars such as Roscoes in Phoenix, Sidelines in Ft. Lauderdale and GymBar in New York/Los Angeles – have brought a love for sports into the mainstream gay community. However, it’s sports fans outside the gay community who are the target, says Parshley, pointing out there’s only so much preaching to the choir one can do.
“It’s like putting up a NOH8 billboard in West Hollywood.”

The sports fan demographic, then, is crucial to campaigns like NOH8 and the “It Gets Better” video project if the goal truly is to educate and change the minds and hearts of all Americans.
Said Parshley: “When people look up to somebody and idolize someone like (them) … that triggers something in people’s heads.”

That may have been what Scott Fujita and Brendon Ayanbadejo were thinking when they made their decisions to speak out in favor of marriage equality. Fujita, a Super Bowl-winning linebacker from his time with the New Orleans Saints, has repeatedly gone public with his beliefs on same-sex marriage. In fact, during the two-week media frenzy leading up to last February’s title game, Fujita was talking equality while most other players were talking smack. And it wasn’t the first time he’d done so.

Several months earlier Ayanbadejo had contributed a blog to The Huffington Post that outlined his viewpoint on same-sex marriage. Fujita was the only active player to rush to Ayanbadejo’s defense, calling the blog “incredibly insightful, thought-provoking, and completely on point.”

Ayanbadejo wrote: “If Britney Spears can party it up in Vegas with one of her boys and go get married on a whim and annul her marriage the next day, why can't a loving same-sex couple tie the knot? How could our society grant more rights to a heterosexual one-night stand wedding in Vegas than a gay couple that has been together for 3, 5, 10 years of true love? The divorce rate in America is currently 50 percent. I am willing to bet that same-sex marriages have a higher success rate than heterosexual marriages.”

He continued: “I think we will look back in 10, 20, 30 years and be amazed that gays and lesbians did not have the same rights as everyone else. How did this ever happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Are we really free?”

That blog appeared in April 2009. Twenty-one months later Ayanbadejo, Fujita and now Cromartie are still the only NFL players to go public with their support of gay equality. But Fujita believes that will change eventually, having told The Advocate: “I think there will be a third player who expresses support for gay marriage ... and a fourth player, and a fifth, and so on.”

If there are any repercussions to be felt for speaking out the way they have, none of these players have experienced them yet. Cromartie has had another solid year after being traded to the Jets in the off-season; Fujita is having one of his best seasons plugging a hole at outside linebacker for the Browns; and at 34 years old, Ayanbadejo has come back from injury to resume his role as a special teams ace for the Ravens.

So, basically, these guys are still doing just fine in their careers.

After the examples already set by these gentlemen, perhaps more football players – or professional athletes from any sport, for that matter – will be motivated to stand up for what they know is right.

According to Fujita there are plenty of his fellow players who support equality and would be likely to speak out, he told The Advocate; reporters just need to ask the right questions.
“All it will take is someone who asks more guys their opinion. … We're more than just football players, and many of us are much more open and tolerant than we get credit for. The reality, however, is that the locker room just isn't the place where these issues are discussed, and your everyday beat writer for the local sports page doesn't get paid to ask those questions.”

But if more athletes speak out, maybe the locker rooms will feature regular conversations about equality. Then, we will definitely know we’re seeing progress.