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Are Professional Team Sports Too Intolerant To Accept Openly Gay Players In 2013, will professional team sports see the very first openly gay athlete? We have to ask, especially after reading an insightful piece in the Los Angeles Times about homophobia in professional sports. Here’s an excerpt: About 4,000 players spent time on active rosters in the NBA, NHL, NFL and Major League Baseball in 2012. With the best estimates of the gay population in U.S. ranging from 2% to 10%, it’s likely many of those 4,000 athletes are gay. Yet not one has come out of the closet. Not this year, not last year, not ever. There are openly gay congressmen and two senators-elect. There has been a gay governor and a cable TV network anchor. Just never an openly gay shortstop, quarterback or power forward. And changing that would require more than simply challenging convention. It could require a player to challenge his teammates as well. “It’s still taboo in the locker room,” explains the Clippers’ Grant Hill. Like in the New England Patriots’ locker room. Earlier this season linebacker Brandon Spikes sent out a tweet claiming to be homophobic “just like I’m arachnophobic. I have nothing against ho*****uals or spiders but I’d still scream if I found one in my bathtub.” Spikes later said he was joking. But former Angels outfielder Torii Hunter, among baseball’s most thoughtful and intelligent players, isn’t kidding when he says an “out” teammate could divide a team. “For me, as a Christian … I will be uncomfortable because in all my teachings and all my learning, biblically, it’s not right,” he says. “It will be difficult and uncomfortable.” David Kopay (Redskins running back), Billy Bean (Dodgers and Padres outfielder) and John Amaechi (NBA center-forward) are gay athletes who waited, like former NFL’er Wade Davis, to come out after their playing careers ended. Yet an active player coming out may be inevitable. In the last six months Puerto Rican boxer Orlando Cruz, a featherweight contender, and Kevin McClatchy, former owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, revealed they were homosexual. And hyper-masculine males such as Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens, Scott Fujita of the Cleveland Browns and Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings — all of whom are straight — have become impassioned spokesmen for same-sex marriage. Then there’s NBA Commissioner David Stern, who last year said it’s no longer a matter of “if” but “when” basketball welcomes its first openly gay player. “It will happen,” he said. “I have no doubt about it.” And talk like that, insists a cross section of professional athletes, former athletes, scouts and team executives, is laying the groundwork for a new locker room culture that will be more welcoming for gays. The views of older players, they say, are at odds with younger players, such as 26-year running back Arian Foster of the Houston Texans who, when asked this month about a gay player being in the NFL, told TV’s Jim Rome “People are more accepting of it…. I don’t think it will be long.” As older players retire and younger ones take their place, attitudes in professional sports are bound to change. That generation gap in social thinking mirrors public opinion polls on gay marriage, with a CBS News poll released last month showing the greatest support — 72% — among Americans ages 18 to 29. But journalist Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of the gay sports website Outsports.com, says something else may be at work. Zeigler interviewed more than two dozen current and former NFL players — including Redskins rookie Robert Griffin III, New England tight end Rob Gronkowski and Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, plus retired Pro Bowlers Jevon Kearse, Ahman Green and Eddie George — over the last seven months and found just one who said he would be uncomfortable with a gay teammate. “When I talk to these guys, the majority of them have a gay family member. And all of them know at least one gay person,” Zeigler says. Griffin had a gay teammate in high school, for example, Green has a gay brother and lesbian sister and Hasselbeck insists he must have played with at least one closeted teammate during his NFL career. Do you think that knowing someone gay makes people more tolerant of homosexuality or has it just become more acceptable thanks to public awareness about marriage equality and other issues? Which pro team sport do you think will have the first openly gay player? Any ideas about who the player may be? Photo Credit: John Loomis/WENN

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Gay: MLB Baller Says Having An Openly Same Sex Lovin’ Teammate Would Be Difficult And Uncomfortable, But Other Athletes Disagree