Hockey star to son: 'We love you, this won't change a thing'

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"I hope the day comes, and soon, when this is not a story." -- Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=buccigross_john&id=4685761

[RufusTFirefly]

1. Moving story. Also posted (with 14 recs so far) here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7090633

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2. Oh ok thanks. I didn't see the other posting of it.

[imdjh]

3. Of course I'm glad that it's a happy ending, but I'm not really getting the point here.

Is this supposed to be especially difficult for him? His parents are educated and wealthy, not exactly one of the more burdened scenarios we once read about, where a gay son trembles as he tell his uneducated immigrant backwoods stevedore father that he swam all the way from Eastern Europe to have his family name extinct on the marquee of an off Broadway theater. We've been told that it's especially difficult for latinos and blacks to come out. I guess we were just supposed to gestalt that it would be rough on hill people, plains people, and the Amish.

I know this is a pissy response, and part of it is that it sickens me that it's 30 years later and I'm still reading coming out stories. I really thought we would have come farther by now.

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4. I think it's the pro sports angle,

as some pro sports are still pretty homophobic. It seems to me that individual sports are less homophobic, but pro team sports still are, by and large. So that is what makes this newsworthy, I guess.

[imdjh]

5. When people the public assumes are gay are in the closet, is any sport not homophobic?

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6. no

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Is this more homophobic or classist?

This concept that 'educated and wealthy' parents are to be assumed to be more tolerant and accepting is really some vile thinking. Hateful post, across the board. How interesting that it 'sickens' you to be reading this, not that people have to deal with this, but that you have to read about it. Backwoods stevedore? I mean, you do understand that a stevedore is a dockside job, and that the backwoods has no freight docks? Is it the physical labor or the lack of money that you think creates bigotry?
You seem to think that a backwoods stevedore is intrinsically better than say, an underwater dentist?

[imdjh]

8. Wow, you woke up like this? Does everything go through that ist filter for you?

This concept that 'educated and wealthy' parents are to be assumed to be more tolerant and accepting is really some vile thinking.

No, actually it's experience. We all have them, and we're allowed to have them. I don't meet a lot of people from upper income and education homes whose parents or community rejected them over coming out, relative to those I have met who complain of being from more humble and less accepting origins.

Hateful post, across the board.

Oh stick it, if I were being hateful you'd know it. Unless you have a perceptual disorder, you're just being some of of holier than thou type, and it's crap. When I read things like this, I wonder if you have any friends, if you try to keep them on eggshells around you, and if you have any idea what it's like to simply speak your mind. I know you probably think of it as being sensitive, but it's not, it's just dishonest.


How interesting that it 'sickens' you to be reading this, not that people have to deal with this, but that you have to read about it.

No, that's your dishonest way of characterizing what I wrote. What I actually wrote was that it sickens me that it's 30 years later (in my life since the age of the author in case you didn't understand that) and I am still reading coming out stories, when by now there should be no new coming out stories, because gay people would simply mature in their families like straight people do.

Backwoods stevedore? I mean, you do understand that a stevedore is a dockside job, and that the backwoods has no freight docks? Is it the physical labor or the lack of money that you think creates bigotry?

it's intellectual shorthand, sorry. It refers to a genre of coming out stories from the past, the drama and strain of coming out to your salt of the earth up from the mines (yes, I know that mines don't have stevedores or woods) father who didn't go to school past (pick a grade) and who didn't understand, and didn't accept because of his lack of worldliness, his blind faith or indoctrination, etc... that he was both upset because you were going to Hell and because his dream for his family was being killed.

I'm allowing of course that you really didn't get what I wrote and that you aren't simply being an ass.


You seem to think that a backwoods stevedore is intrinsically better than say, an underwater dentist?

Oh well, so much for allowances.

[cecilfirefox]

9. Sometimes I wonder if you'd even see stories like this is the kid in particular

wasn't as pretty or attractive as this. I know, I know, it sounds kinda awful and Debbie Downerish. But don't you guys think that? That if this kid has been fugly and stocky build perhaps no one would have cared?

For a Wiccan and a Buddhist I feel pretty damn cynical sometimes. :/

[imdjh]

10. I would agree that there is a cheesecake factor.

I think part of this is that we're supposed to be impressed that he's so "otherwise normal" that his father didn't even suspect. Well, sorry, we all have too much experience under our belts to buy that. Heterosexuality doesn't make one deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid even if one makes his living in pro sports. If he didn't suspect/know that his son is gay then either he wasn't paying attention or the son was doing something to lead dad to believe he was straight. He wasn't simply so "normal" that his dad didn't know.

[Occulus]

11. Stories like this are very hard for me to read...

they make me wonder what might have been....