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Did Brady Quinn Use Anti-Gay Slur Outside Club?

For Brady Quinn, New Year’s Eve was a memorable day. He spent some time with friends to celebrate the end of 2007, went out to eat with his girlfriend…and made anti-gay remarks outside a restaurant?!?

Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn denied that he was involved in an altercation on New Year’s Day in which a man claimed on an emergency phone call that Quinn made a slur at him.

On a 911 call early Jan. 1, Seth Harris told Columbus police that Quinn was with a group at La Fogata Grill and that they were insulting gays outside the restaurant.

“There’s a group of football players, Brady Quinn from the Browns … and he’s trying to cause a fight,” Harris told the operator. “His friends are yelling at all of the gay people that are around here.”

First question: What was Brady doing outside a gay bar on New Year’s Eve? I’m just sayin’…

Anyways, if these allegations are indeed true, it’s just another example of homophobia in the sports world. Let’s be honest: Professional sports aren’t ready for openly gay male athletes, and they likely won’t be ready for quite some time. There’s a huge difference between the stereotypical image of a male athlete and the stereotypical image of a gay man, and until that changes, I just don’t see how a professional athlete could possibly “come out” during his playing career.

I mean, just look at what Kordell Stewart did in order to prove he’s straight:

Some Steelers admit they were fazed by rumors that Stewart was gay, until he called a meeting before the 1999 season and issued a denial that included graphic descriptions of heterosexual acts he enjoys. “I could see the humor in the situation,” Stewart says, “so I decided to have some fun with it. At one point I said, ‘You’d better not leave your girlfriends around me, because I’m out to prove a point.’ A couple of guys said, ‘F— you, Kordell,’ and we all cracked up.”

A truly hilarious story, but it’s nevertheless troubling. That occurred roughly nine years ago, and hardly anything has changed since then–if you’re a professional athlete and are rumored to be a homosexual, you’d better deny it, and you’d better make sure there’s no doubt that you’re completely, unquestionably, 100% straight.

Ah, but this post has gotten way too bleak, hasn’t it? Here’s something good: Tim Hardaway has decided that he no longer hates gay people. Still, though, it’s fairly disturbing that it took him 12 months to reach that conclusion (a year ago, while appearing on Dan Le Batard’s radio show, Hardaway said “I hate gay people” when asked about John Amaechi’s coming out).

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.