14 NFL Pro Bowlers Say They Would Welcome A Gay Teammate

Being able to play is the overriding theme, these players say
From: OutSports

Harrison Smith of the Vikings says a player’s ability is all that matters.

There are no openly gay players in the NFL but I did find support from 14 Pro Bowlers if one ever decides to come out.

After practices this week for the Pro Bowl in Orlando, I asked 18 players for their thoughts on the Pulse nightclub shooting, LGBT issues and having a gay teammate. Fourteen were LGBT-supportive in their answers:

Walt Aikens (Miami Dolphins defensive back); Doug Baldwin (Seattle Seahawks wide receiver); Ha Ha Clinton-Dix (Green Bay Packers defensive back); Thomas Davis (Carolina Panthers linebacker); Casey Heyward (Los Angeles Chargers defensive back); Jordan Howard (Chicago Bears running back); Travis Kelce (Kansas City Chiefs tight end). 

DeMarco Murray (Tennessee Titans running back); Greg Olsen (Carolina Panthers tight end); Matt Prater (Detroit Lions kicker); Harrison Smith (Minnesota Vikings defensive back); Joe Thomas (Cleveland Browns tackle); Mike Tolbert (Carolina Panthers fullback); and Leonard Williams (New York Jets defensive end)

Four players did not answer the question. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith seemed to be in a rush and said no comment. Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner had no comment when I asked how the NFL could improve its relationship with the LGBT community. Oakland Raiders punter Marquette King said that he doesn’t pay attention to global events and that all he watches is cartoons. And Philadelphia Eagles running back Darren Sproles said he didn't know what LGBT meant.

Here are the relevant answers from the 14 players on having a gay teammate:

 Walt Aikens 

Miami Dolphins 

Defensive Back

“I really don’t know if that [being gay] has anything to do with anybody’s ability to play football. If you can play football, you can play football.”

 Harrison Smith 

Minnesota Vikings 

Defensive Back

 “If you can do your job and you can play, that’s all that matters.”

 Matt Prater

Detroit Lions 

Kicker

 “Everybody should be equal and treated the same. We would treat any [gay] player with open arms. We are all family in the locker room. I don’t think it would be a big deal or anybody would care too much. Especially if they are good ball players, we welcome them all. We just want to win football and try to win games.”

 Mike Tolbert 

Carolina Panthers 

Fullback

“Your sexuality is all your personal preference. Me, personally, as a football player, I don’t care who you are as long as you can play football.”

 Leonard Williams

New York Jets 

Defensive End

“I would be OK with it. More people are comfortable with it nowadays and I would respect his sexuality.”

 Doug Baldwin 

Seattle Seahawks 

Wide Receiver

“It wouldn’t bother me.”

 Thomas Davis 

Carolina Panthers 

Linebacker

“[They would] still be my teammate, still be one of the guys working hard in this league with me.”

 Greg Olsen

Carolina Panthers

 Tight End

“I think it’d be great. It’s a very open and honest group of guys. The locker room is a very understanding group and I think he would be treated no differently than everybody else.”

 DeMarco Murray 

Tennessee Titans 

Running Back

“I’d treat them the same. It wouldn’t matter.”

 Ha Ha Clinton-Dix 

Green Bay Packers 

Defensive Back

 “That’s their personal business. If they’re gay, they’re gay. That’s on them. You know, I wouldn’t feel different about them, wouldn’t treat them any different way. Respect is respect.”

 Travis Kelce 

Kansas City Chiefs 

Tight End

“Anybody in this world [can play]. I’m comfortable with who I am and I expect everyone to be comfortable with who they are. I respect people for their views and opinions.”

 Jordan Howard 

Chicago Bears 

Running Back

 “I’m pretty sure we would be supportive. We’ve been bonding together and that wouldn’t change anything too much.”

 Joe Thomas 

Cleveland Browns 

Tackle

 “It’s amazing that the opinions in the locker room have changed 180 degrees from when I first started playing football to where they are right now. I think every locker room in the NFL would accept an openly gay teammate with open arms now, whereas it was such a taboo thing to even talk about when I first got into the league. I think that speaks to the tremendous progress that LGBT issues have had in such a short period of time.”

Casey Hayward 

Los Angeles Chargers 

Defensive Back

“I’d be open arms to whoever. Can’t control what you feel, with who you want to be with, things like that. I’d be open to it, open arms to whoever.”

In addition to the comments they gave me, Tolbert and Davis participated in an event with the You Can Play Project in Orlando.

It was a very interesting situation as a gay teenager ask straight football players their opinion on LGBT issues and having a gay teammate. I learned that some players — such as with Travis Kelce and Darren Sproles — are naive as to what goes on in the LGBT community . I also was surprised that some players were very knowledgeable about LGBT issues, most notably Joe Thomas, who played with Brad Thorson in college, and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, an Orlando native who said that he has LGBT family members.

Many players also saw the Pro Bowl as part of the healing process for Orlando after the Pulse nightclub attacks. Several fans in the stands at practices wore Orlando Strong T-shirts and the Pulse nightclub attacks will always be a very dark day in the history of Orlando and the LGBT community. However, seeing the positive reactions from players and fans alike made me very proud to call Orlando home and it also made me proud to be gay.

In terms of playing with a gay teammate, I did not receive one negative comment. For the most part, these Pro Bowlers have one goal in their mind: winning. They couldn’t care less if their teammate was gay or straight. The NFL is a tight brotherhood and family.

It was nice to see all of these players from all over the league laughing with each other and having a good time. Based on the reactions I got, if a player were to come out as gay, he would be embraced with open arms by many players in the league.

10 Protest Movies That Inspire Change In These Scary Times

From: Queerty

10. 

The US vs. John Lennon

Sometimes protests take unusual forms, and for John Lennon’s, his opposition to the Vietnam War took the form of music. The US vs. John Lennon features extensive interviews from Lennon’s friends, family, and various other political figures of the time, including wife Yoko Ono, queer author Gore Vidal and civil rights leader Angela Davis. The film ties Lennon’s anti-war stance to his latter day career woes, as well as attempts by the CIA and Nixon White House to publicly embarrass the singer, and have him deported. While the movie probably overstates Lennon’s involvement in turning public sentiment against the war and indeed, his political involvement in general, it does paint a fascinating portrait of a man who protested through unconventional means. John Lennon, if nothing else, proved that men and women could find peaceful and clever means to fight oppression, including humor, art and some simply great music.

Another Year, Another Fabulous Actress & Gay Icon Snubbed By The Oscars

From: Queerty

Joan Crawford

The Women

1939

Joan Crawford is the most recognizable name in the cast of The Women, mostly because countless gay men have performed satirical drag portrayals of Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in the ridiculous and hilarious Mommie Dearest. But really the tragedy here is not just Crawford’s absence from the Academy nominations for that year, but the Academy did not nominate any of the actresses in The Women. This superb movie earned a place in history for being the first major studio production with a cast entirely of women, and it is a must-see for fans of classic Hollywood, both for its snappy acting and writing and also the glamour factor of an era of film making gone by. The Women was remade in 2008, but don’t bother watching it, that version was dreadful. As for Crawford, she did win a Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce (1945), and was nominated again as Best Actress for Possessed (1947) and Sudden Fear (1952).

7 Queer Films That Should Have Been Nominated For An Oscar This Year

From: NewNowNext

Other documentary greats from 2016 include Strike a Pose, a look at the dancers from Madonna’s infamous “Truth or Dare” tour, Southwest of Salem, chronicling the plight of a group of Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted of raping two young girls; and Author: The JT Leroy Story, which peels back the veil on one of publishing’s biggest hoaxes—a fictional trans prostitute turned literary star who entranced Hollywood.

Google Doodle for January 30, 2016

Fred Korematsu's 98th Birthday

Today Google’s US homepage is celebrating Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, civil rights activist and survivor of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. January 30th, 2017 would have been his 98th birthday and is officially recognized as Fred Korematsu Day in California, Hawaii, Virginia and Florida.

A son of Japanese immigrant parents, Korematsu was born and raised in Oakland, California. After the U.S. entered WWII, he tried to enlist in the U.S. National Guard and Coast Guard, but was turned away due to his ethnicity.

He was 23 years old and working as a foreman in his hometown when Executive Order 9066 was signed in 1942 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The order sent more than 115,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States to incarceration.

Rather than voluntarily relocate to an internment camp, Korematsu went into hiding. He was arrested in 1942 and despite the help of organizations like ACLU, his conviction was upheld in the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. United States. Consequently, he and his family were sent to the the Central Utah War Relocation Center at Topaz, Utah until the end of WWII in 1945.

It wasn’t until 1976 that President Gerald Ford formally ended Executive Order 9066 and apologized for the internment, stating "We now know what we should have known then — not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans.”

Fred Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in 1983 after evidence came to light that disputed the necessity of the internment. Five years later President Ronald Reagan signed the The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 citing "racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and a lack of political leadership" as the central motivation for Japanese internment.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s most distinguished civilian award.

Fred Korematsu can be remembered fighting for civil rights and against prejudice throughout his life, famously saying:

"If you have the feeling that something is wrong, don't be afraid to speak up."

Stairway To My Soul

From: Brent's Auto Wall

‘Everything I Worked for Doesn’t Matter’: Iranian Ph.D. Grad Claims She’s Banned from Entering the U.S.

From: People

A woman who earned a Ph.D. at Clemson University in South Carolina has been temporarily banned from entering the United States as a result of President Donald Trump‘s executive order temporarily banning refugees and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries. She is one of dozens of people who have been affected by the executive order after it was signed into affect on Friday evening.

Iranian-born engineer Nazanin Zinouri shared a post about her harrowing experience trying to return to her home in the U.S. on Saturday. Zinouri wrote that while visiting her family in Tehran, Iran, she learned about Trump’s new executive order.

“Soon we started reading drafts like everyone else,” Zinouri, whose LinkedIn page says she earned a Ph.D. in industrial engineering at Clemson in 2016, wrote on Facebook. “I might be banned from going back?!?! No that can’t be true. I’m not gonna let that ruin my trip.

“But then it got serious so fast,” she said. “Before I knew it, it was actually happening. Even though I didn’t want to leave my family, I quickly booked a ticket to get on the next flight back. Only a few hours after the order was signed, I got to the airport, got on a plane and made it to Dubai.”

Getting to Dubai was the beginning of a grueling — and ultimately unsuccessful — attempt to re-enter the U.S.

“After waiting in the line to get my documents checked and after 40 minutes of questions and answers, I boarded the plane to Washington, only to have two TSA officers getting in and ask me to disembark the plane!!!” she said. “Yes after almost 7 years of living the the United States, I got deported!!!”

But beyond being disappointment that she couldn’t return to her home in the U.S., Zinouri expressed her heartfelt sentiments about feeling that everything she worked for was suddenly meaningless.

“No one warned me when I was leaving, no one cared what will happen to my dog or my job or my life there,” she said. “No one told me what I should do with my car that is still parked at the airport parking. Or what to do with my house and all my belongings. They didn’t say it with words but with their actions, that my life doesn’t matter. Everything I worked for all these years doesn’t matter.”

The executive order Trump signed on Friday suspended entry of all refugees to the U.S. for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the U.S. for 90 days for nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Zinouri’s native country of Iran.

On Sunday, after a federal judge blocked a key component of Trump’s executive order, the White House backtracked on the the order’s applicability to legal permanent residents of the U.S.

As far as green card holders moving forward, it doesn’t affect them,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Sunday morning in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. But he added that those green card holders could be subject to additional interviews — similar to the one Zinouri described — if they frequently travel to the countries in question.

“You’re going to be subjected, temporarily, with more questioning,” he said.

He Left For A Gay Cruise, But Returned To An Immigration Ban

"If I get detained and sent back to Iran, at least I lived life to the fullest as a gay man in the U.S."
From: NewNowNext

It sounded like a dream vacation: A seven-day gay cruise with cute guys, on board entertainment and stops in exotic ports of call. But it turned into a nightmare after President Trump’s executive order banned refugees, green-card recipients and visa holders from seven Muslim countries from entering the United States.

Maysam Sodagari, a chemical engineer living in San Francisco, was aboard an Atlantis cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas when the order was signed.

Because he was an Iranian citizen, when he disembarked in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, he was detained by customs officials.

Fearful he’d be sent back to Iran, where he’d face persecution and violence because of his sexuality, Sodagari began chronicling his ordeal on Facebook.

“I left the port with a legal status for a gay cruise,” he wrote. “Now, I may not be able to enter the U.S. tomorrow. My future is all unclear just by a sudden change in law.”

Fearing the worst, he added, “If I get detained and sent back to Iran, at least I lived life to the fullest as a gay man in the U.S., And I want to thank you all for being part of this experience.”

Friday’s order puts a 90-day hold on immigration by citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. (Initially it barred green-card holders, like Sodagari, from re-entering the United States, too.)

The ACLU challenged the ban on Saturday and a federal judge ruled that those with valid visas—like Sodagari—could not be deported. After being detained for several hours, he was released.

“I am happy to report that I’m here with Maysam,” tweeted OUT Miami Foundation director Jamie Alejandro from Wilton Manors. “He is doing well and is in good spirits—obviously concerned and shaken up, but doing well.”

While he’s safely back in his adopted homeland, should Sodagari try to leave the country again he could face immediate deportation.

We don’t share this story to suggest his situation is more important or dire than any other. But it puts a human face on the tens of thousands of visitors, refugees and citizens impacted by this order.

“To single out Muslim persons for stigma and suspicion undermines our commitment to inclusion, religious freedom, and our common humanity,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “Today Lady of Liberty, symbol of America’s greatest promise to the world, hangs her head and weeps.”

Dish of the Day #75

From: Deep Dish

Rusty Joiner

24 Times Drag Queens Perfectly Described How High You Are

From: NewNowNext

19

The Lazy High

“I death dropped and I can’t get up…..siiiiigh.”

NYLE DIMARCO TAUGHT HIS FANS SIGN LANGUAGE FOR “RESIST” IN RESPONSE TO TRUMP’S MUSLIM BAN

From: Wicked

Nyle DiMarco frequently teaches his fans words and phrases in sign language via Snapchat and Instagram, but is using his platform to stand in solidarity with the protesters who are calling out President Donald Trump’s ignorant and bigoted platform.

Just yesterday, the model posted a video to twitter showing fans how to sign “resist.”

“I RESIST the Trump Administration because #MuslimBan is not only unconstitutional, but also inhumane,” he wrote. In another tweet, he lambasted Trump’s ban against Muslims “childish.”

Sign Language for RESIST.

I RESIST the Trump Administration because #MuslimBan is not only unconstitutional, but also inhumane. pic.twitter.com/urOdq0wjmo

— Nyle DiMarco (@NyleDiMarco) January 29, 2017

Banning Muslim has to be the MOST childish thing I've ever heard of.

— Nyle DiMarco (@NyleDiMarco) January 28, 2017

DiMarco has been vocal about a Trump presidency from the get go. In a speech given at the Human Rights Campaign, DiMarco joked that he has a “tremendous advantage” in not being able to actually hearTrump speak.

“Don’t you want to sometimes just turn the volume off completely when Donald Trump starts to rant… I don’t hear a thing,” he laughed.

I'm just so glad I can't hear Trump.#DeafGain

— Nyle DiMarco (@NyleDiMarco) October 10, 2016

An Instagram of Memories of People We've Lost to AIDS

From: kenneth in the (212)

If you want to kill a few hours -- and risk wanting to kill yourself because of all the heartbreak -- head over to The AIDS Memorial Instagram. Billed as a place "preserving the legacy of the AIDS epidemic with stories of love, loss and remembrance." the account is the perfect evolution of the famed AIDS Memorial Quilt, only more information can be shared about the person depicted -- stories, obituaries, bios -- and way more people have access to it.

Hello, Kelly!

The page was set up somewhat anonymously by a guy named Stuart in Scotland, who explained to i-D what his inspiration was: 

"I was always struck by how many talented people passed away and were just forgotten about. People could've lived and achieved much more but didn't get that option. For a long time lots of people just didn't want to talk about AIDS, so I started looking for people's stories."

As the deadliest years of the plague thankfully fade into the distance, Instagram seems like the perfect setting to remind younger people of the generation of men and women whose lives were wiped out way too soon.

So handsome.

Derek Anson Jones was the director of "Wit."

Artist Tom Bianchi remembers his friend David 

Seeing Nora Burns's show about her friend David tonight.

Submit your story to the following address: theaidsmemorial@yahoo.com

Follow on Instagram HERE.

Betsy DeVos Gives Us Lesson In Defensive Smiling

From: OMG

Republican shade! It’s a thing – and it’s got one note! Show us what its takes, Betsy Devos!

He’s Naked: Norwegian MMA Fighter Emil “Valhalla” Meek

From: OMG

 Norwegian MMA fighter Emil “Valhalla” Meek is totally welcome to put us in a choke hold OR body slam us – we won’t complain – we promise! Check him out!

50 BODIES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE BANGIN’: AN INTERACTIVE TREASURE HUNT FOR FACE PICS

From: Manhunt Daily

macisteenelinfierno

Cuauhtémoc, Juárez, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal, Mexico

CUALQUIER COSA QUE PONGA NO LA LEEN. SALUDOS.

***

Happy Birthday today January 30th

Happy 43rd to actor Christian Bale!
From: Favorite Hunks & Other Things

Newsies (1992)

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

 Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)

48 GUYS YOU MIGHT POSSIBLY WANT TO FUCK

From: Manhunt Daily

sydnEguy

Saint Peters, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Click to go.

msg and find out

Anthony Peretti - MEN - August 2009

Men 

August 2009

Coverguy

Samuel Colt (Nude inside and also appears as the centerfold) photographed by Serg Studio

Features

Latin Lover Juan Blas

Perv-Next-Door Anthony Peretti

Muscle Wolf Matthew Cameron

Jackpot At The Lust Casino

 Anthony Peretti

Photography by Body Image Productions

 He's got a hunky ruggedness that you can't help but love. After a long day working around steel and dirt, he comes back dripping with sweat and ready to get out of those clothes.

See More of Anthony After the Jump: