NY Firefighters Refuse to Play Against Gay Team (rugby)

[racaulk]

Members of a rugby team made up at least partially of New York City firefighters, including one featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, refused to play a game against the Gotham Knights gay rugby team after one of the firefighters asked the gay team if they could guarantee that none of their players were HIV-positive.

As Gotham team leaders went over strategy prior to their quarterfinal match against the team, called Rock B/Fire, in the 30th Annual Rockaway Rugby Sevens Tournament in Queens on Saturday, June 17, a player from the Fire team approached the Knights, said Eric Merfalen, a 26-year-old back for the team.

“He came up and said something like, ‘I don’t mean to be a jerk, but...’ and then he asked if we could all confirm that we were not HIV positive,” said Merfalen, who was standing with the group. “He asked us several times.” Merfalen was the only member of the Knights who agreed to have his name used for this story. He spoke with Outsports shortly after the incident, before Gotham club members were asked not to speak to the media.

Outsports was able to confirm through other sources at the tournament that Mefalen’s teammates support his version of events and are angry about what occurred.

<---snip--->


Link: http://www.outsports.com/local/2006/0621gotham.htm

[sui generis]

1. hey, and likewise that's what they should have asked back.

No problem - In fact they should be sure to ask that of every team they play.

I think they should get it tatted on their foreheads just so everyone will know and be safe: "Jerk"

somebody should explain hydrostatic pressure to these firefighter guys and also don't forget to ask them about chlamydia, syphilis, all the hepatitis you can stand, crotch rot and fugly, which I hear is indeed communicable.

:eyes:

[marmar]

2. "then he asked if we could all confirm that we were not HIV positive"

Which I'm sure they asked all the non-gay teams too, right? :sarcasm: This is truly sad. When it comes to acceptance and understanding in this country, it's one step forward, three steps back.

[Obamarama]

3. Actually, I think the firefighter's concerns were valid....

What on the surface appears to be discrimination is likely just concern with coming into contact with blood during a rugby game. I played rugby and Australian rules football in college and trust me, the blood can flow.

That being said, the firefighters should be educated that any one of THEM could be HIV positive as well, despite the fact that they are presumably heterosexual. Were they willing to guarantee one or more of them weren't HIV positive? I suspect it never crossed their minds.

Yeah, I suppose it is discriminatory to an extent - ignorant, to be sure - but again, after personally witnessing many a bloodletting during a match, I would have to say I understand their concern, but then their concern should extend to ALL teams they play.

[sui generis]

7. yeah, but people bleed OUT

you get infections by introducing the infection transcutaneously under optimal conditions, and HIV and most viruses are extremely fragile. The blood may fly but it doesn't fly back INTO your blood vessels. Even surface bacteria has to be hardy enough to withstand exposure to air, a wide variety of temperature and your own hydrostatic pressure to get anywhere near a remote chance of infecting you.

It's a mythology - we could not have survived as a species chasing beef-on-the-hoof with spears and bones in our noses if every little scratch killed us. We are just not that delicate.

[Obamarama]

10. Good point - first responders likely face greater risks in the field....

Than ON the field. I'm not necessarily defending what the firefighters did, but think it had more to do with ignorance than outright discrimination. This whole incident seems like a good learning opportunity for the ignorant FDNY guys.

[Book Lover]

24. I grew up in an Irish Queens neighborhood with firefighters and cops

living on my block. Please believe me - this does not come from ignorance. First responders get good training regarding possible work-related exposure to HIV; they have been trained about how low-to-impossible the odds of infection are, even from such a bloody sport as rugby.

[MsUnderstood]

9. Wow! You gotta a lotta repressed prejudice there

"What on the surface appears to be discrimination is likely just concern with coming into contact with blood during a rugby game. I played rugby and Australian rules football in college and trust me, the blood can flow."

Well actually it is discrimination if the fire fighter team didn't ask EVERY TEAM before this one the same question.

"That being said, the firefighters should be educated that any one of THEM could be HIV positive as well, despite the fact that they are presumably heterosexual. Were they willing to guarantee one or more of them weren't HIV positive? I suspect it never crossed their minds. "

Fire Fighters have been trained in Basic life support. That includes CPR, trauma response and infectious diseases. They should be trained already about HIV and where the disease comes from. They also KNOW that they are far more likely to catch diseases out in their job than on a rugby field.

"Yeah, I suppose it is discriminatory to an extent - ignorant, to be sure - but again, after personally witnessing many a bloodletting during a match, I would have to say I understand their concern."

Umm again why aren't they concerned about the other teams who they will be sharing blood with? Aids is NOT a GAY diseases it is a HUMAN disease and Heterosexual cases are raising. IN fact, "According to Wright, it is "long past time" that the U.S. public health system faces the fact that more than half of the estimated 40,000 newly diagnosed HIV-positive people each year in the U.S. are black."

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/Daily_reports/rep_hiv.cfm#38036 ((Wright, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/19). )

Based on your arguement, shoudn't the firemen now ask all BLACK men about their HIV status?

[Obamarama]

12. I suspect Ms. Understood misunderstands me....

No prejudice here, and certainly nothing repressed, either.

Let me put it another way. I don't think the big, brainless, breeder jocks from FDNY thought of their fears/concerns in the global context. I thought I made that pretty clear. More than anything, I think this is a perfect example to educate them regarding their ignorance. Don't you think that would be a better tact than spiraling into high dudgeon and screaming discrimination?

[MsUnderstood]

13. okay maybe my subject was a bit harsh

And I apologize for that subject line. . .but

. . .they should already be educated because their job requires a basic knowledge of medical concerns and treatments. It scares me that Fire fighters in new york haven't been given the medical training that ANYONE can carry HIV (when a part of their job is FIRST RESPONSE TO AN EMERGENCY). If they have been given the training and their fears override it then it is okay?

And sometimes you gotta respond with screaming discrimination when 25 years after the epidemic was first named we still point our finger at the homosexuals as the only ones who can possibly carry and tranmit the disease when THEY ARE NOT THE PROMINENT CARRIERS.

Let me ask you this--if the TEAM WAS NOT GAY, would the question have been asked?

And the answer will be no.

[nosmokes]

11. *NEWS FLASH* straights have HIV/aids too

does the NYFD rugby team ask all their opponents if they can cwertify that the entire team is disease free? what about hep-c? buncha homophobic assholes.

[JackBeck]

23. You make an excellent point by bringing up Hepatitis C.

Many people don't know that it is easier to have HCV transmitted to you than HIV. HIV tends to die one the virus comes in contact with the air, or there soon after. While HCV can live outside of the body for up to 4 days. There are also 350 million people world-wide who have HCV, while 40 million with HIV.

[sui generis]

4. I played rugby with the FDNY team and all I got was this

a t-shirt.

lame-ass wussy excuse.

here rug burn.




I think they should print that up.

[prole_for_peace]

5. i thought it was going to be about the "straight" team

being scared the gay team would "touch" them in the scrum.

[sui generis]

8. is scrum a contraction for

scrotu....

shit I can't do it with a "straight" face :rofl:

[prole_for_peace]

16. i didn't even think of that..

good catch. but in case someone doesn't know the terminology a scrum is when all the players get in that big old pile and fight for the BALL!!! sorry couldn't help it.

[Meeker Morgan]

6. NYC law prohibits discrimination in city employment.

No "don't ask don't tell" crap, either.

Perhaps there are some gay men in the FDNY, despite the group culture?

Maybe even in the rigby team?

[NI4NI]

14. Does this mean that

the fireman would not play in a pick-up game of b-ball against someone like.....hmmm....let's say, Magic Johnson?

[GodlessBiker]

15. Wimps. They were afraid that losing to a gay team would tarnish them.

I know guys on the gay team. They are amazingly good soccer players. The firefighters made a calculation that forfeiting a game on this issue was better than the risk of losing. Assholes.

[Occulus]

17. Does this mean HIV+ New Yorkers can't count on the NYFD

to save them if they're bleeding out?

I just want to make certain how Jewish we all are.

(And yes, just to be clear, that was indeed a historical reference.)

[NMMNG]

18. I wonder if they ask every person they intend to rescue from a fire/

other dangerous scene if they are HIV positive, and refuse to rescue them if they are positive or cannot guarantee that they aren't. :sarcasm:

[cboy4]

19. I just don't understand people like this with so-called brave jobs . . .

These are the same firefighters who wouldn't think twice of running into a burning building to rescue people, yet they're hysterical about playing sports with some gays.

Same thing with the military......male soldiers are absolutely hysterical about the thought of a gay guy seeing them naked in the shower, but have no problem patrolingl the IED-rigged streets of Fallujah or engaging in life-threatening machine gun battles.

What is it about gay people that transforms straight dudes from men into little PUSSIES?! :shrug:

[noamnety]

20. The Iraq vets I know

care a hell of a lot more about patrolling IED-rigged streets than gays seeing them in the shower. I don't know where you got that from.

Objecting here to your word choice - can you possibly find another way to phrase that so it doesn't objectify and put down women?

[cboy4]

21. I think you understand my point -- practically every soldier I've heard

talk about why they are not in favor of having gays in the military is because they would feel uncomfortable in close settings.

If the people you know feel otherwise, that's good to hear, and therefore I certainly wasn't referring to them.

I apologize if my use of that word, offended you.

But maybe you can understand my frustration.

edit spelling

[noamnety]

22. I understand the frustration

definitely. I share it.

And I'll admit that the caliber of the vets I've been hanging out with might be above par - I might be biased but I don't think you'll find better people than the VFP folks (or the IVAW). :)

But even beyond that, using a more random sample, the only gay wedding I ever went to was for a civilian engineer working for the Department of the Army. People from the office were invited - and it was packed. A good number of people packing it - even though gay marriages aren't legal in this state - were army officers.

Even the worst of the homophobic bigots, though, I think, would still prefer spooning up with fellow troops, gay or not, for body warmth to getting blown up by IEDs. All those cases of PTSD aren't from serving with gay troops.

[cboy4]

25. Yes, I was exaggerating the whole being more afraid in the showers

comment to try to drive home a point. :banghead: LOL!!

Cool deal about the wedding ;)

[dsc]

26. It is really disappointing in this day and age

Heck, even highschoolers know better than this. In the very first years of AIDS this might have been excusable but in year 26, give me a break. Just using logic helps greatly. AIDS has been around for 25 years and if it were able to be transmitted this way wouldn't there have been quite a few athletes with AIDS? By my count only two pros, Ashe and Johnson came down with AIDS. Ashe via transfusions and Johnson via sex with females. Not one NBA player got AIDS from Johnson. Literally maddening.

[JackBeck]

29. Interesting points about athletes.

But I wouldn't give people the credit that you do.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/am-aids0615,0,48264.story

I do HIV Health Education, and some people still think that HIV is an air-borne virus. Yes, 25 years later, and people still think you can get HIV from a toilet seat. This doesn't surprise me, since our government has yet to update its HIV/AIDS educational material, which states that you can get HIV from sweat and tears. Oh, and not to be nit-picky, but you cannot get AIDS from anyone. HIV is the virus that is transmitted, which may lead to an AIDS diagnosis.

[readmoreoften]

27. I know some of the guys on the team.

The Gotham Knights have been in the league for a long time now. It's not the first time the FDNY played against them. The truth is that the Knights have been playing very well, and the fire fighters used this as an excuse to get out of losing the game. It was not only anti-gay, it was cynical and cowardly.

Frankly, I think it's sickening. But typical.

[cboy4]

28. How do you know the firefighters used this just as an excuse to avoid

losing the game?

I mean, I'll take your word for it considering firefighters must surely know how difficult it is to contract HIV without sexual contact or a tainted needle prick, etc....AND you're far more familiar with the league than myself.

Regardless of the reason, I agree, it's sickening.