PLANK SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
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Last week, Emmett C. Burns, Jr., a Democratic state legislator, penned a letter to Steve Biscotti, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens football team, urging him to compel his veteran linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo to stop supporting a Maryland referendum to legalize same-sex marriage.
Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe published a response on the sports blog Deadspin that—to use the sort of phrase Kluwe would—ripped Burns a new one. Kluwe defended Ayanbadejo’s right to free speech—he astutely noted that Burns had, in a bonus appalling gesture, written his letter on official stationery. He also, in crude yet compelling prose, made a passionate case for civil rights: “Gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life,” Kluwe noted. “They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won’t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population.” And he added, no doubt in recognition that Burns is a black pastor, “Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?”
Kluwe’s letter worked: Burns stopped his bullying Monday, acknowledging of Ayanbadejo, “He has his First Amendment rights.” Moreoever, Kluwe’s blistering rebuke ginned up a lot of media attention over the fact that professional sports is stunningly behind the times when it comes to gay rights (although most of this attention optimistically pointed to the very small group of athletes who have bucked this trend); tellingly, the New York Times covered the Ayanbadejo flap not after Burns wrote his letter but after Kluwe sent his response. And Kluwe’s letter really may have been, in the words of Nation sportswriter Dave Zirin, “The Greatest Political Statement By Any Athlete Ever.” Because it was so funny, well written, and on-target, and because it did not come from just another preening professional pundit, it made for an extremely satisfying read.
The problem is, Kluwe is sort of another preening professional pundit. Though an honest-to-God NFL veteran (in fact, he is one of the league’s best punters), he isn’t exactly Joe Gridiron. His parents are a chemical engineer and an anesthesiologist, and he scored an 800 on his SAT Verbal. “Kluwe is a bit different from most NFL players,” writes ESPN blogger Kevin Seifert, who covers Kluwe’s division. “Kluwe would fit in perfectly in a group of impossibly smart California mensas who spend half their time working out and (most of) the rest playing video games.” He tweets as @ChrisWorldcraft.
More importantly, the outspokenness that has characterized this latest episode is his schtick; you might even be so cynical as to say it is part of his gig. He is the league’s self-styled conscience, who frequently takes to Twitter to “rant” about liberal football fans’ causes celebres: the danger of playing on a frozen outdoor field (as the Vikings had to when the Metrodome roof collapsed in 2010); the arbitrariness of which vicious hits get fined and which don’t; the horror of the New Orleans Saints’ practice of putting bounties on opposing players; the selfishness of a few stars who tried to secure nice deals for themselves before last year’s player lockout was settled; the lousiness of the replacement refs.
Because of his willingness to say such things—which are all correct (except, maybe, about the replacement refs)—and to say them as a player, he has become something of a media darling, particularly in that segment of the sports media which shares these concerns: all the tweets cited above appeared in hand-wringing news articles about those subjects; he has contributed frequently to Deadspin, including to it and Slate’s joint running conversation on the football season; he has even appeared on Slate’s excellent sports podcast.
Much as he does on the field as the punter, in the media world Kluwe fulfills a not-unimportant but still highly specialized niche in which, uniquely, it is in his interest—in, one presumes, his eventual financial interest—to go against the grain of his sport’s culture. That doesn’t prove or even suggest that his commitment to gay rights is insincere. But amid all the celebration and attention his letter has rightly received has been lost the more important fact that Kluwe is not representative, and that the football, baseball, basketball, and hockey rank-and-file will have to demonstrate a lot more bravery of the off-brand variety before the sports world stops being mainstream America’s hardiest redoubt of homophobia.
13 comments
so he is a football version of a Charles Barkley...so? They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. Is absolutely hilarious, I don't care who says it and for what reason, it is hilarious.
- blackton
September 12, 2012 at 8:14pm
Wait, the problem with Kluwe is that he's too smart?
- miceelf
September 12, 2012 at 8:32pm
Don't trust him, he's smart!
- JEFF FREY
September 12, 2012 at 9:24pm
You spend a lot of time knocking Kluwe's importance as a player - but then completely ignore the fact that he's defending Ayanbadejo's views and statements. To say Kluwe is not representative of NFL players while ignoring the fact that he is defending another player's similar beliefs is missing a very important detail. In this story we have two players who are very public in their support of gay athletes - how many are currently that public in their opposition?
- Attrill
September 13, 2012 at 12:09am
The bigger deal is the comments by Ayanbadejo. Who cares what some nancy-boy punter thinks: a Baltimore Ravens LINEBACKER supports gay rights.
- subterra
September 13, 2012 at 10:54am
How long before some variant of "lustful cockmonster" becomes the name of a rock band?
- cspencef
September 13, 2012 at 1:07pm
I'm sure that, among Chris Kluwe's favorite video games, there is one in which the hero must battle lustful cockmonsters to get to the next level.
- wildboy
September 13, 2012 at 1:12pm
"How long before some variant of "lustful cockmonster" becomes the name of a rock band?" Lustful cockmonster and Pussy Riot
- stanmvp48
September 13, 2012 at 2:26pm
You support your claim that Kluwe is atypical of the NFL, but offer no support at all for the claim that sports is "America’s hardiest redoubt of homophobia." I don't have any direct experience of this, but I have a hunch that on this second point you're wrong. My best friend in medical school played college football at a high level (NCAA Div 1 school, second team All American, fell short of the NFL draft but got invited to camps for both Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars) and he personally was not remotely homophobic. What's more, he gave me the impression that the locker room ethos was one of sexual libertarianism, and while it may not have been the most welcoming environment for a gay man to be out and proud, any hostility would have been directed mostly at feminine softness in a man, not homosexuality per se. I have the feeling that, provided he could hold his own on the field and in the weight room, an openly gay man would have fit in just fine on my friend's team and that if he was at all prolific sexually, his teammates would have gotten a kick out of his tales of conquest.
- AaronW
September 13, 2012 at 3:21pm
What a great cause for TNR, supporting the culture of disease & death. Don't know about you, but whenever I think about the NFL, all I can conjure up is HIV+ hombres having random anal sex. Backfield in motion!
- raygun
September 13, 2012 at 5:52pm
Hey raygun, take a guess how 90% of people living and, yes, dying with HIV acquired their infections. (Hint: it isn't gay sex.) And do you see the irony in your sharing your virulently bigoted judgement of male homosexual promiscuity--"the culture of death"--in a thread whose starting point is the desire of some such men to pursue monogamous relationships and have those relationships acknowledged and respected by society? Also--and I hate to break it to you--HIV/AIDS isn't going to do your eugenic dirty work for you and your hateful little Nazi friends. Thanks to a lot of excellent scientific work and thanks to the efforts of HIV clinicians such as myself, in the US and other developed countries, a diagnosis of HIV is no longer anything like a death sentence. I tell my newly diagnosed patients that they can look forward to a near-normal lifespan. I'm currently 42 years old. Were I forced to chose between receiving a diagnosis of HIV and one of type-II diabetes, I'd pick the former. Are you going to call fast food restaurants participants in "the culture of desth?"
- AaronW
September 14, 2012 at 8:57am
Aaron--Your "90% of HIV+ not due to AIDS" maybe refers to Africa, where unfortunate innocents get tainted blood transfusions; where Nigerian truck drivers have sex w/prostitutes and refuse to use condoms; and drive on to their next victim; & to the glorious republic of South Africa, whose Bantu leaders have shall we say unique views of AIDS. (google it if you dare.) But my comment was about American fudge-packers, including this "youth" at ND State who was kicked off the team after being caught smooching his 65 yo boyfriend and who lied that the guy was his grandfather. As if tongue-kissing your grandfather made it cool! Perhaps someone like me who wants people to live disease free is actually the friend of HIV victims, and perhaps you, w/your gross tolerance, are contributing to the disease & death.
- raygun
September 14, 2012 at 2:51pm
I've treated HIV in Africa, raygun. Most AIDS sufferers in Africa are guilty of nothing more than the perfectly normal human function of heterosexual sex, which also happens to be one of the few genuine pleasures available to those living in extreme poverty. Imagine yourself living in a windowless box of corrugated iron beneath the desert sun. A rivulet of shit flows down the hillside past the flap of old carpet that serves as your door. In the "zinkie" next door there's a young woman who will share with you the heap of rags that is your bed, will keep you warm at night, boil the cornpone that is your only food, and every so often give you a smile that makes you feel like you aren't all alone in an indifferent hell of a universe. Thing is, playing the odds, there's a 20% chance she's already infected with HIV, and given the limits of what you can offer in terms of material support, there's a reasonable likelihood that if your girl gets propositioned by some miner with a pocketful of cash, she'll take him up on it without your knowledge. So what do you do, raygun? Foreswear sex altogether? Live as a self-righteous hermit while those around you sicken and die? Might work for you, but only an ignorant fool such as you would suggest it as a realistic prescription for an entire generation. You're a hateful bigot, raygun. But trouble not your empty head about anything I've tried to teach you. This is the last you'll hear from me. You're a waste of my time.
- AaronW
September 14, 2012 at 9:13pm