Bisexual men sue gay group, claim bias

[Big Don]

Bisexual men sue gay group, claim bias

By Janet I. Tu
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - Page updated at 11:04 AM
Seattle Times staff reporter Seattle Times EXCERPT:


Three bisexual men are suing a national gay-athletic organization, saying they were discriminated against during the Gay Softball World Series held in the Seattle area two years ago.
The three Bay Area men say the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance in essence deemed them not gay enough to participate in the series.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle accuses the alliance of violating Washington state laws barring discrimination. The alliance organizes the annual Gay Softball World Series.
Beth Allen, the alliance's attorney, said the lawsuit is unwarranted and that the three plaintiffs "were not discriminated against in any unlawful manner."
In any case, Allen said, the alliance is a private organization and, as such, can determine its membership based on its goals.
Whether the alliance is public or private will likely have to be determined in court, since the plaintiffs characterize the alliance as a "public accommodation" that's open to the public and uses public softball fields.
The three plaintiffs — Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles and Jon Russ — played on a team called D2 that qualified for the 2008 Gay Softball World Series, which is organized by the alliance.
The alliance's rules say that each World Series team can have no more than two heterosexual players. According to the lawsuit, a competing team accused D2 of violating that rule.

 

[Big Don]

Another fine example of intolerance from a group that screams for tolerance.

 

[Empty Hands]

You sound very concerned about the membership policies of gay social groups.

 

[Big Don]

You sound very concerned about the membership policies of gay social groups.

Honestly, I don't think about it at all, not even now. That isn't the point I was making. People who spend a lot of time screeching for tolerance, like this gay group, spend a whole lot of time being INTOLERANT of any idea/ideal but their own.

 

[Empty Hands]

Honestly, I don't think about it at all, not even now.

On the contrary, you post about what the gays are up to all the time. Perhaps the Lady doth protest too much?

 

[Ken Morgan]

catcher....pitcher....

 

[Jade Tigress]

C'mon guys, lets stick to the topic shall we?

It seems to me that most groups that want tolerance for their own beliefs can get awfully intolerant when it comes to beliefs other than their own. Just a bit of irony.

 

[CoryKS]

Sorry guys, it's a softball game. You really need to pick a team.

 

[Empty Hands]

It seems to me that most groups that want tolerance for their own beliefs can get awfully intolerant when it comes to beliefs other than their own. Just a bit of irony.

Not ironic at all. It is no more intolerant than a kenpo tournament denying entry to MMA schools or a women's social group denying entry to men. To describe this as "intolerance from those desiring tolerance" is pretty ridiculous.

But it might make the mean, scary, nebulous "left" and the gays look bad, so Big D is all over that ****.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Sorry but some Gays just aren't gay enough.:uhyeah:
Sean

 

[yorkshirelad]

Not ironic at all. It is no more intolerant than a kenpo tournament denying entry to MMA schools or a women's social group denying entry to men. To describe this as "intolerance from those desiring tolerance" is pretty ridiculous.

But it might make the mean, scary, nebulous "left" and the gays look bad, so Big D is all over that ****.

If that's the case, I'll start a hetero martial arts league and watch you cry intolerance. So it's ok to be homo and intolerant, but it's not ok to be hetero and intolerant.........seems like another lefty hypocrit.

 

[Jade Tigress]

Not ironic at all. It is no more intolerant than a kenpo tournament denying entry to MMA schools or a women's social group denying entry to men. To describe this as "intolerance from those desiring tolerance" is pretty ridiculous.

But it might make the mean, scary, nebulous "left" and the gays look bad, so Big D is all over that ****.

You're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare, then compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges.

Personally, I don't care what they do. I guess I was a little too subtle in my *hint* to stay on the topic of the OP rather than turn this into a mud slinging fest.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Intolerance comes in all shapes and sizes. Members of marginalized groups can have their issues too. FWIW I don't approve of the league's stance on this. It appears that the issue was raised by members of an opposing team.

So this sounds to me to be as much about the North American male and his love of winning at sports as much as anything else. If you ask me, they're behaving like little league parents.

Now, I do find it interesting that league rules permit two heterosexual players per team. So just as a black person could travel to South Africa as an "honourary white" in the days of Apartheid, bisexual men qualify as "honourary heterosexuals" in this particular baseball league.

I understand the desire of some gays or Lesbians to have separate events. It's not about sex; it's about fitting in. Sports traditionally in North America carries a lot of heterosexist baggage. The locker room is on the one hand a place where men walk around naked AND call other people "******s." The anti-gay language is the antidote to the elephant in the room -- which is that locker rooms are basically homoerotic.

All of that said, there is a difference between a group of gay men or Lesbians having an event or activity within their group AND organizing segregated clubs and invoking charters and rules to maintain a certain level of gayness. That smacks of the country club; the separately incorporated, gated suburb; or just about any old boys' network.

As I've said before, my father came out as a gay man in his seventies. I went to a very macho boys school that was known for hockey and football. I did not fit in during my middle school years because I was bad at sports; polite to teachers; interested in the arts, etc. I listened to the anti-gay slurs on a daily basis for two years, and was years later told by a gay colleague that the experience gave me a pretty good insight into the feelings of isolation experienced by gays and Lesbians. I know when my dad came out that I relived a lot of the pain growing and was quite fearful of what he might face.

Thus, from my perspective, I see LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) as one group, variations on a theme, perhaps. Many members of these groups see themselves as separate, and some really do not want to be associated.

Thus we see discrimination within a group in much the same way people of varying elasticities within the same overall racial group may not feel comfortable interacting.

As strongly as I feel about equal rights for LGBT, and as much as I understand that people often congregate according to groups they identify with, this is prejudice as vile as any other, and I won't apologize for it. It is a choice of marginalized people creating institutions which perpetuate marginalization. It is a human behaviour -- albeit socially unproductive, not a gay one.

Addressing some of the side discussion, I must confess to some discomfort. I am suspicious of the reasoning behind starting this thread. I make no bones that Don and I disagree fundamentally on array of human rights issues, as I see them. The coy inferences to closeted homosexuality I do not approve, as much as I respect the viewpoints of the people who have made them in jest.

They cut a little too close to the bone for my comfort and mirror the behaviour of members of the gay men's league that interrogated the bisexual players. So if we're going to have this discussion, I would prefer that we rise above the level of the men's locker room.

Otherwise it's just a bunch of noise.