Know Your Enemy

"I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. 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—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children."

When Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendan Ayanbadejo expressed his support for legalising gay marriage, Maryland state delegate Emmett C Burns Jr wrote a letter to Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti effectively asking him to gag his players on the subject. The above is part of Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe's response to Burns. When will a high-profile Premier League footballer have the guts to do likewise and speak out publicly on the subject? We can but wonder.

One Brit who was speaking out on the issue recently was Nick Clegg, whose speech initially referred to opponents of gay marriage as "bigots". The term was later excised for media release - but not before it had created quite a stir. I suppose the word has become a dangerous one for politicians to use following Gordon Brown's outburst about Gillian Duffy, but given that (for instance) the Free Dictionary definition of a bigot is "one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ", isn't this a case of the cap fitting? As Peter Tatchell suggested, Clegg shouldn't be discouraged from calling a spade a spade.