Do you recognize Ben Cohen's name? How about Hudson Taylor? When will their names define the true meaning of "celebrity"?
Cohen has long been a topnotch English rugby star, bringing the World Cup Title to his country before his recent retirement. Hudson Taylor wrestled his way to All-American status at the University of Maryland and now serves as an assistant coach at Columbia. What Cohen and Taylor share is their unswerving commitment to bring homophobia in sports into the limelight and ultimately to throw it out of every game.
What idle complacency numbs hearts and minds and makes the behavior of a politician and an actor front page fodder? Why does anyone care either to write or to read about them? When homophobia links directly to teen suicide, escalating harassment, bullying and beatings, loss of career and family and friends, why not focus on the "coming out" of two (not-gay, and that still matters) premiere athletes to fight a problem that would seem not to affect them personally? Dr. Martin Luther King, however, in his "Letter from the Birmingham City Jail" reminds us that homophobia does affect them and all of us: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Bigotry lurking and festering in any heart threatens everyone. Today it's the gay or lesbian, tomorrow the Mennonite or the Mexican...the Asian or the Arab. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre renders this stinging indictment of prejudice in his "Portrait of the AntiSemite:" "A man (or woman...) who finds it natural to denounce men cannot have our concept of the humane; he does not even see those whom he aids in the same light as we do; his generosity, his kindness are not like our kindness, our generosity." Prejudice taints the bigot's entire being; such cruelty can't be isolated, reserved just for this one group only, and still leave one a good parent, teacher, friend, or employer. Sartre would suggest that homophobes "go about repeating some formulas which they have learned" and those ingrained weapons can be wielded at will, adapted for any use. No one is safe.
