"Superman" Crashes.

Kevin Pillar has been one of the most popular Toronto Blue Jays over the last couple of years.  He regularly makes spectacular catches in the outfield, and this year has been one of the team's best hitters.  But his popularity may take a hit after last night's game against the Atlanta Braves.  After striking out to Braves reliever Jason Motte in the seventh inning Pillar threw a number of curses at Motte, which reportedly included a homophobic slur.  After the game Pillar apologised, but Major League Baseball is investigating the incident, and sanctions may be possible. 

This is sure to remind some Blue Jays fans of Yunel Escobar.  During a 2012 game then Jays shortstop Escobar had a Spanish language homophobic slur written in his eye black.  The team suspended him for three games, and donated his salary for those games to gay rights groups.  There would later be speculation that Escobar's tenure with the team was cut short due to his behaviour, as he was traded to the Miami Marlins late that year. His contract was set to continue into the 2013 season, with options for 2014 and 2015. 

If Pillar were to be suspended for this incident, even if presumably only for two or three games, it would just add to the woes of the Jays, who have blown the momentum they gained with their recent five game winning streak.  It may also have an effect on the marketing of the team, given that Pillar has played a prominent role in that marketing.

How many gay players are there in the majors?  No one knows.  You can be sure that incidents like this won't encourage them to come out while they're players.  Such incidents may also discourage gay youth from considering a baseball career.  A lot has changed in pro sports in recent years regarding the way such things are treated, but the actual climate on the field is still questionable.

Be Careful.

Today I got a hit from the United Arab Emirates from someone looking for gay material of some sort.  I hope whoever it is won't face problems as a result.  The UAE isn't the most gay friendly place in the world, as a Wikipedia article makes clear.  There's nothing on here that is in any way explicit, but when has that stopped bigots from taking action?

Sign It.

I'm not normally one to sign online petitions, but this one is an exception, especially since my MP probably is too much of a backwards thinker to suppor this idea.  Bill C-279 will prevent discrimation against transgendered people, who currently are not protected from discrimination in various forms.  Sounds like a good idea to me, so I signed this petition in support of the bill.  The petitioners are looking for 10 thousand signatures, but they've got a long ways to go.  So if you think this is a good idea, sign it.

Straight Only.

This morning I heard a bit of a CBC report on the YouTube based campaign to get Joseph Kony, leader of the Ugandan terrorist group Lord's Resistance Army, captured.  One of the people being interviewed mentioned that Lonely Planet, the well known travel book publisher, had named Uganda one of its top ten countries to travel to in 2012.  This made me raise my eyebrows given a major problem Uganda has.  A look at LP's website turned up an article on these picks, which does mention the problem.  It quotes the UK Foreign Office warning:

There is very little social tolerance of homosexuality, which is illegal. There have been moves, initiated by a Ugandan MP, to introduce reactionary legislation that would further criminalise homosexuality and introduce the death penalty for some activity… you should be aware that homosexuality is generally seen as taboo and exists on the margins of society.

Uganda's treatment of gay people has generated a lot of negative press for the country.  Equally disturbing is that much of the recent prominence of the issue in Uganda is due to the work of US evangelists, who have been pushing the issue of late.  One of them, Scott Lively, is being sued by an African group,  Sexual Minorities Uganda, that advocates for gay rights.

Althougfh they do mention that Uganda is not a gay friendly destination, Lonely Planet still chose it as one of their top ten travel destinations for 2012.  You'd think this major human rights problem would keep it out of the top ten, but that's not the case.  You'd also think they'd be worried about this creating a perception problem amongst its target audience, which one assumes is more likely to be the kind of crowd that thinks anti-gay sentiments are a bad thing than buyers of some of the more traditonal travel guides.  Apparently that's not the case.  They apparently also don't seem to worry that a significant percentage of their readers might be gay, and might reconsider their patronage as the result of this recommedation.

Thumbs Down, Brad Trost.

Brad Trost is the MP for my riding. Since he's a member of the Conservative Party I had little reason to vote for him in the first place. And now I have even less reason after seeing comments he made to the so-called pro life site LifeSiteNews about government funding of Toronto's Gay Pride Week. Specifically this Trost statement got my ire going: "The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy...." How is a gay pride parade anti-family? Well, I suppose it is if you hold a narrow idea of family that never applied to everyone in the first place, and does so even less in an era that is slowly seeing silly prejudices against people for their choices of consentual sex partners fade away. And anti-life? Equally silly, since gays and lesbians are pretty much immune from causing or having accidental preganancies respectively, and hence are exceedingly unlikely to seek abortions for anything other than rape or utter medical neccessity.

Trost also said "Canadian taxpayers, even non-social-conservative ones, don't want their tax dollars to go to events that are polarizing or events that are more political than touristic in nature." As decided by whom? Somehow I doubt Trost would be complaining if someone got a government grant for a "Support Our Troops" parade, despite the political nature of such a function. Or how about the Calgary Stampede, which is becoming a lightning rod for a small but increasing number of Canadians who see it as meaningless cruelty to animals.(I'm neutral on the subject.) The reality is anything with a message beyond "Let's all have a nice day" is likely to offend somebody, and I wouldn't put it past some people to be offended even by something that innocuous.

Gay Saskatoon.

Yesterday's Saskatoon Star Phoenix had an article about the state of Saskatoon's "queer" community. Not surprisingly the consensus was that many "straight" people are more open minded towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people, but that acceptance of such groups is far from universal. Those talked to generally agree that being open about being a lesbian is a bit more accepted than being open about being a gay man. Transgendered people face the most problems, with even some in the "queer" community expressing negative attitudes towards them.

This should come as no surprise. Merely being a member of a minority group does not make one automatically accepting of other minority groups. All one has to do is think of the racism that often exists amongst those who are themselves victims of racism.

As for Saskatoon's GLBT community it should be remembered that they are individuals first, that no one size fits all. There are sure to be some who scoff at the idea of a specific "queer" culture, or in fact find the use of the term "queer" unacceptable. Sexuality is a complicated concept, tied up with one's personal worldview, character, and self perception, and the correct way for one person to deal with theirs is not necessarily the correct path for others.

The use of the term slash to denote fanfiction that involves homosexual relationships is generally believed to have originated with Star Trek fanfiction, coming from story descriptions that contained something like "Kirk/Spock" to denote gay content in the story.

Boy, will this news get some of the Trek slash fans going! George Takei, who played Sulu in the original series, has come out in a magazine article. He decided it was finally time to do so, although one would think those who know him well already knew, especially since he's been with the same man for 18 years. Takei says he grew up with the double whammy of feeling negative about his Japanese heritage because of being interned as a child during WW2, and feeling negative about his sexual preference given the prejudices of the time. Fortunately things have changed.

It should be noted that Sulu has a canonical daughter, who appeared in the film Star Trek: Generations, so he may very well have a wife. Of course in the 23rd Century of Star Trek who knows what technologies may be used to create children by those who don't want to or can't do it in the old fashioned way.