One of the things that still pushes my buttons is the sometimes arrogant attitude professional (and semi-professional) athletes take about how their heterosupremacist attitudes somehow make them "real men." There is just something insecure to me about a man whose identity is so wrapped up in the direction his peepee points - or worse - that he believes he possesses a golden peepee, but when he goes off on a public mocking tirade of another adult male (on a baseball diamond in front of hundreds of fans) then someone needs to take the entire idea of the purpose of sports to task.
Now mind you, this story has a semi-happy ending, though I cannot imagine how such an awful public display can ever be erased from the memory of the victim. And while I believe people should be capable of handling things (the sticks-and-stones idea), I also realize that, had something similar been thrown at a heterosexual man (taunting his sexual "lifestyle") there would have been a physical assault and charges of sexual harassment (at a minimum).
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/gay-umpires-ordeal-shows-sad-state-of-sports-081310"On the last day of July, for the second straight game, Van Raaphorst tossed flamboyant Edmonton Capitals manager Brent Bowers in the first inning.
Bowers argued balls and strikes from the dugout on the 30th. A close play at first base set him off on the 31st. On both days, Bowers played to the crowd, rolling up his sleeves and mocking the 6-foot-4, 220-lb Van Raaphorst with a “gun show.”
On the 31st, Bowers took things a step further, launching into an anti-gay tirade that would make Mel Gibson blush.
“You know what I heard?” Bowers screamed. “I heard you are a f---ing (expletive). The rumor from several managers and people at the league is that you are a (expletive) ... So what do you do you f---ing (expletive)? Do you take it up the f---ing (expletive), you (expletive)?”
As his verbal meltdown continued, Bowers, a second-round draft pick of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1989, bent over and grabbed his ankles.
“Is that how you like it, you f---ing (expletive)?... I know he’s a (expletive),’’ Bowers ranted. "I was told by Garry Templeton (a manager in the league) and Kevin Outcalt (commissioner of the league) that he is a f---ing (expletive).”
Van Raaphorst, a former 290-pound center at San Diego State, resisted the urge to defend himself."You know, a lot of these ballparks are often financed (at least partially) by public tax breaks or taxpayer funding. Is there some reason why I should be paying for a venue for these kinds of antics?
To be fair, the column points out that Bowers was eventually fired, after other umpires stood up for Van Raaphorst. But the point remains that a grown man (who suddenly discovers that he really wasn't a grown man AFTER he loses his job over this outrageous public display) somehow believed his heterosexuality grants him entitlement to not only project his own imagined fantasies about the lives of someone else, but to degrade them as well.
This is not something simply limited to a sports stadium, though such a huge public display is an outrage. Almost every time I post or engage in a discussion forum (usually in mainstream media locations online) about a gay issue, there is a core of "conservatives" defending "marriage" who seem to believe they have a rather shocking and graphic idea of what intimate gay relations is like. Where did they learn these things? From a high school sex education class? From reading Playboy? From indulging in their heterosexual fantasies? Since we know these things are not discussed in public school education, and presumably "conservatives" never discuss anything but traditional intercourse inside "marriage," how exactly DO straight men get such a graphic knowledge of what a gay person does? And why do they feel naturally entitled to engage in a public display of such pretend knowledge?
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