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coming out
BOSTON, Oct. 1 — A Boston Herald sports writer came out as gay in a column Tuesday, saying he could no longer tolerate the “unabashed homophobia” in professional sports.
“I JUST GOT to the point where I didn’t want to be silent anymore,” Ed Gray, a 55-year-old reporter who has worked at the Herald for about two decades, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. “In the sports world, homophobia is tolerated.”
He added: “It’s the one minority that seems to be fair game.”
In his column, Gray cited recent comments by New York Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey, who was quoted calling Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells a “homo,” and San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst, who said, “I don’t want any faggots on my team.” Neither was punished by the NFL. Shockey said he was misquoted and Hearst apologized.
“I’m out because I can no longer, in good conscience, choose to ignore the unabashed homophobia that is so cavalierly tolerated within the world of sports,” he said in the column. “I’m out because the silence of a closeted gay man only serves to give his implicit approval to bigotry.”
Gray said his hope is that “major league sports address the issue of homophobia and people who make overt homophobic remarks or actions be held accountable.”
Few sports writers are openly gay, and L.Z. Granderson, a gay sports columnist for Access Atlanta, the entertainment tabloid of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, said the machismo that is part of pro sports extends to journalists.
Granderson said there has been no negative reaction from athletes to his homosexuality. He revealed his own sexual orientation writing about competing in basketball in the Gay Games, and also in response to a group of Atlanta Thrashers hockey players he was with at a bar who asked why he was showing little interest in the women there.
My only comment is this...why did this take so long? The man is 55. Could he really have kept his secret for this long?
Knowing that athletes are generally homophobic, and I know that it took years to let women into the locker rooms, but would there really have been an issue?
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