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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
In 2002, San Francisco 49ers' tailback Garrison Hearst was asked by a Fresno Bee columnist how he would feel about playing with a gay teammate and responded: "Aww, hell no! I don't want any faggots on my team. I know this might not be what people want to hear . . . I don't want any faggots in this locker room." (Hearst later apologized for his remarks after considerable criticism.)
Following this remark, I wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle that blasted the persistent homophobia in sports.
"The anti-gay comments made by 49ers running back Garrison Hearst were shocking. An athlete on a San Francisco team disparaging gays is about as smart as a Utah Jazz player deriding Mormons.
Yet, homophobia is so pervasive in the sports world that Hearst was seemingly oblivious at first to the fact that he might have said something offensive. Unfortunately, the sentiments he expressed are shared by many in the professional game, and these prejudices filter down to locker rooms at the most grassroots level of team sports across the nation."
Sadly, it appears nothing has changed in the 49ers organization, even though the team plays in the gayest city in the world.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the 49ers' front office created an in-house training film that featured off-color racial jokes, lesbian porn, a spoof of gay marriage and a trio of buxom, topless blondes frolicking with team public relations director Kirk Reynolds.
Basically, the 49ers turned their diversity video into a vehicle to mock gay people and ethnic groups in the Bay Area. How stupid are these people? My solution is fire everyone in management and start over from scratch. It is obvious that the current folks calling the shots don't get it and probably never will. When you have a team run by ignorant dirtbags, it is time to clean house.
4 Comments:
What does the 49 stand for - the teams collective IQ?
