gay for play

[+ glutes]

Are you gay enough? The most discriminatory groups may sometimes be those specific groups that are protected.

 

(04-21) 21:04 PDT SAN FRANCISCO --

 

All Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles and Jon Russ wanted to do was to win the championship game at the Gay Softball World Series for their amateur San Francisco team.

 

Instead, they were marched one by one into a conference room at the tournament in suburban Seattle and asked about their "private sexual attractions and desires," and their team was stripped of its second-place finish after the men were determined to be "non-gay," they said in a lawsuit accusing a national gay sports organization of discrimination.

 

The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, pits the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a San Francisco group backing the men, against the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, which prides itself on barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.

 

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/21/BAS51D26LD.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0lq8D2hYS

[rvwnsd]

I find it laughable that the Atlanta Mudcats complained about D2 having too many straight players after losing to them. Sounds like they have bought into the notion that gay athletes are less powerful than straight ones.

[Guest Merlin]

This type of "discrimination" is generally Constitutionaly protected. The Constitution and civil rights acts protect against discrimination by the state, and certain types of discrimination in commerce (race, sex etc. ) by I know of no Federal law which would protect sexual orientation. Perhaps some states do. But there is a constitutional protection for the right to assemble, as part of the first amendment. Does a small abortion rights group have to admit a thousand right-to-life advocates, bent on destroying the group? NO.

A few years ago a gay pride group brought suit demanding the "right" to march as gays in a St Patrick's day parade and the Court rejected the claim. Their right to speak and demostrate does not give them the right to drown out dilute the speech or demonstrations of others.

Am important case in the US Supreme Court now involves the question of whether the groups recognized by a state university can be required to allow members who do not share the groups interests, goals or characteristics. The present court will hold that such groups do not have to allow such people.

Gay softball is a lttle different, but the courts will hold that gays have a right to organize their own sports. That right would be meaningless if they were forced to allow non-gays.

[KMEM]

Aren't most of our "rights" almost meaningless now anyway?

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[+ glutes]

Sounds like there were some sore losers that sparked this whole thing.

The 'straight' players are now suing the baseball league because they were asked humiliating questions to determine their sexuality. Can you imagine what some of the questions were?

[Guest ChgoBoy]

Well one thing is for sure - we certainly have a very (from another thread here) active lesbian community of civil rights attorneys in our community.

 

Bravo for that!

 

This really does reek of poor sportsmanship here as Glutes states.

 

I'm assuming that team D2 had to "advance" through a series of other teams to finally finish in second place - so why wasn't this scrutiny of so called "orientation requirements" entertained by the alliance during that advancement - or even before the team was accepted and entered into the series itself? To play an entire season or through an entire championship series without this being of concern or issue to the alliance is problematic.

 

And how about all the other true cocksuckers on the team? How fair is this for them?

 

Perhaps everyone should just be required to suck a dick before their team enters the World Series. You know, Just to be sure.

 

I'm just wondering if they met the really important softball criteria which actually should be under scrutiny here by the alliance.

 

1) Did their uniforms fit tightly enough (particularly the pants) or was there unnecessary and excess bagginess to reflect an undesirable, lazy and untoned ass sag in the posterior region?

 

2) Did the color of their pin stripes clash with the color of their batting helmets or had this been thought out well in advance?

 

3) Did they demonstrate the appropriate amount of congratulatory ass slapping which is required when a player returns to the dugout after scoring a run or batting in an rbi?

 

4) Did the players properly grease their bats in public with rosin in the appropriate "up and down" manner as apposed to the inappropriate and undesirable twisting around in hand style?

 

5) Were the players legs properly crossed when sitting in the dugout while awaiting their turn to bat?

 

6) Did the players vocally exhibit an appropriate level of support for their fellow team members - such as "Good eye Mary, good eye" and "Run gurl run"?

 

I sure do hope so. Life is hard enough to get through, without the really important things being absent.

[Lookin]

ChgoBoy, you knocked it out of the park!

 

http://ramletsrule.blogspot.com/words/8-13-05%20dlee%20home%20run%20swing.JPG

[+ deej]

As Jay Leno (consider the source) said:

 

You can't put together a softball team without a couple of switch hitters!

[+ glutes]

Chgo Boy, deej / Leno, you have made my day!

Interesting that these Seattle queens raised an objection after they lost, not before.

[KMEM]

Not to pick on you, glutes, but who complains before they lose? Sure, rules committees, umpires and other officials are supposed to make sure the rules are followed before, during and after but, if something gets by the officials who should do what and when? If you don't get caught by the cops, were you still speeding? Of course, you were.

 

I am the first to admit there may be whole groups of folks making a mountain out of a molehill here. Now, where is my pet mole?

 

Best regards,

KMEM

 

BTW- I like the title of this thread. Also, you new slogan.

[+ friendofsheila]

I have left one gay group and might well leave another, both of whom either refuse to address the issue of whether non-gay people are welcome as members or guests in the group or just plain declare that that "we are a group of gay men who...."

 

The only kind of group that should REQUIRE that all members be gay is one requiring sexual activity.

 

This is just people practicing just exactly the kind of discrimination that the Boy Scouts got called into court for, only doing it to straight people. It makes me feel the OPPOSITE of proud to have ANYTHING to do with them.

 

Sheez.

[uwsman2]

not a constitutional lawsuit

 

This isn't a constitutional case. It's about a Washington state law that prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation. The reason it is a federal lawsuit is because the plaintiffs are residents of California and the defendant is in Washington State, so there is geographical "diversity" between the parties. If the amount at stake in the damage claim is sufficiently high, such a case can be brought in the federal court even though the claim involves only a state law, because federal law authorizes the federal trial courts to be available for lawsuits between parties from different states.

 

The big question in the case will be whether the defendant, a non-profit organization that holds the Gay Softball World Series, is a "public accommodation" subject to the law or a distinctly private organization that is privileged to use whatever criteria it wants to decide who can compete in its event. There seems little question that discrimination based on sexual orientation occurred here when they adopted and attempted to enforce a rule that no competing team could have more than two non-gay players, the idea being to preserve the event's identity as a "Gay" event.

[Guest Merlin]

The Constitutional issue--which I assume will be raised as a defense-- is extent to which the state, can, consistent with the US Constitution limit the freedom of assemply and association.