Der Hammer

[Ron Manager]

Trying to protect his pundit career then. What Fowler did whether Le Saux was gay or not gay was sickening and I thought so at the time.

Der Hammer didnt have to go through what Le Saux did. And he wasnt gay. Fowler should be kicked off the BBC with immense haste.

A cynic may suggest he apologised just to protect his new job as a pundit on the BBC.

That is what I have said above . And Savage has sent a letter of apology. Hadnt got the guts to say it face to face. Both of these two jokers
'apologised' years after the event. Ince apparently has not and he of all people should know better.

[oldhill_avfc]

Fair play PC

I'm gay myself, but play football, get involved in active stuff. I've learned to turn a blind eye to humorous quips, and can take a joke. Hopefully one day things will improve. The church don't help, as demonstrated in your post, the hypocritical bastards.

It's affected my life, as I'm not sure I've accepted it, but hey ho. I just try to get on with travel and other stuff.

Very pleasing to read so many mature posts on here, fair play to you all :-)

Why do you say the Church is hypocritical?

My understanding is that the mainstream Christian churches welcome homosexuals but view practising homosexuality as a sin.   Of course this is a belief which maybe unacceptable but I don't think it's hypocritical. 

[Ger Regan]

Fair play PC

I'm gay myself, but play football, get involved in active stuff. I've learned to turn a blind eye to humorous quips, and can take a joke. Hopefully one day things will improve. The church don't help, as demonstrated in your post, the hypocritical bastards.

It's affected my life, as I'm not sure I've accepted it, but hey ho. I just try to get on with travel and other stuff.

Very pleasing to read so many mature posts on here, fair play to you all :-)

Why do you say the Church is hypocritical?

My understanding is that the mainstream Christian churches welcome homosexuals but view practising homosexuality as a sin.   Of course this is a belief which maybe unacceptable but I don't think it's hypocritical. 

I'd guess that Oldham Villa might be seeing hypocrisy in, say, the catholic church pontificating about homosexuality, whilst at the same time aiding and abetting paedophiles amongst their own ranks by doing everything in their power to cover up cases of abuse.

[supertom]

Interesting read about Le Saux there. It seemed like he was ostracized as much as anything, for being intelligent. That's a shame in itself in football, but for players to then pick up on that and translate it to him being a "poof" was very sad, and only enforced the fact that some of those aforementioned players were dumb as a bag of spanners. Disappointed to hear about Townsend in that article. He always struck me as a decent guy, but seems even he could take things too far. Maybe it was a Chelsea mentality? I dunno, they seem to have had a lot of knobheads in their squad over the years, and still do.

[oldhill_avfc]

Fair play PC

I'm gay myself, but play football, get involved in active stuff. I've learned to turn a blind eye to humorous quips, and can take a joke. Hopefully one day things will improve. The church don't help, as demonstrated in your post, the hypocritical bastards.

It's affected my life, as I'm not sure I've accepted it, but hey ho. I just try to get on with travel and other stuff.

Very pleasing to read so many mature posts on here, fair play to you all :-)

Why do you say the Church is hypocritical?

My understanding is that the mainstream Christian churches welcome homosexuals but view practising homosexuality as a sin.   Of course this is a belief which maybe unacceptable but I don't think it's hypocritical. 

I'd guess that Oldham Villa might be seeing hypocrisy in, say, the catholic church pontificating about homosexuality, whilst at the same time aiding and abetting paedophiles amongst their own ranks by doing everything in their power to cover up cases of abuse.

I don't think the Catholic Church's aim is to aid and abet paedophiles but is more to protect it's own status.   Either way it's criminal activity and should be investigated and the guilty have the book thrown at them.

Probably best leaving religion and politics out of this as I think we all agree on the sentiment that being a gay footballer ought to be no big deal and it's a great pity that many have suffered through a fear of abuse.

[Monty]

You cannot leave out politics and certainly not religion from the condemnation of homophobic abuse.

[Ger Regan]

Fair play PC

I'm gay myself, but play football, get involved in active stuff. I've learned to turn a blind eye to humorous quips, and can take a joke. Hopefully one day things will improve. The church don't help, as demonstrated in your post, the hypocritical bastards.

It's affected my life, as I'm not sure I've accepted it, but hey ho. I just try to get on with travel and other stuff.

Very pleasing to read so many mature posts on here, fair play to you all :-)

Why do you say the Church is hypocritical?

My understanding is that the mainstream Christian churches welcome homosexuals but view practising homosexuality as a sin.   Of course this is a belief which maybe unacceptable but I don't think it's hypocritical. 

I'd guess that Oldham Villa might be seeing hypocrisy in, say, the catholic church pontificating about homosexuality, whilst at the same time aiding and abetting paedophiles amongst their own ranks by doing everything in their power to cover up cases of abuse.

I don't think the Catholic Church's aim is to aid and abet paedophiles but is more to protect it's own status.   Either way it's criminal activity and should be investigated and the guilty have the book thrown at them.

Probably best leaving religion and politics out of this as I think we all agree on the sentiment that being a gay footballer ought to be no big deal and it's a great pity that many have suffered through a fear of abuse.

Agree with your last point, but just to be clear I wasn't claiming that their actual goal was to aid and abet paedophiles, but that's exactly what happened due to their actions. And they certainly should be brought to account, I'm just not sure that they are being as cooperative as they could be, even now.

[SO Villa]

In defence of Andy Townsend, didn't he just take the piss for reading the Guardian? There's no mention of anything else.

[Dave Cooper please]

The religious angle bewilders me most. Alex apparently  said God created Adam and Eve for a reason and religious view is that we are all created by the almighty if so then he/she also created Thomas.  Why don't they accept that?

I think, in many but obviously not all cases, people use religion as an excuse for their bigotry.

This is where I find many religious people to be hypocritical, they say that religion and the Bible is there to provide a moral guideline to how we should live our lives yet will openly condemn homosexuality because the Bible says it's a sin. If they are going to pick and choose which bits they think we should be using then surely, as most civilized society now accepts homosexuality as perfectly okay, religious people should be going out of their way to be accepting of it also, and that should be one of the bits of the Bible that they can dismiss as "wrong and outdated" like the bits on slavery and wife-beating.

[oldhill_avfc]

In defence of Andy Townsend, didn't he just take the piss for reading the Guardian? There's no mention of anything else.

He took the piss for being 'not one of the lads' or being different.  Isn't that the whole point - we shouldn't abuse those who not like 'us - black, gay, muslim or whatever?

[Concrete John]

In defence of Andy Townsend, didn't he just take the piss for reading the Guardian? There's no mention of anything else.

Townsend has always struck me as a fairly OK bloke, but chances are that if it was going on in a team he was part of he'd probably be at least guilty of laughing along with it.

About the church thing - does anyone who's talking about their attitudes towards homesexuality actually go to church?

I do and as an example when the gay marriage debate was going on, our parish priest spoke about it to the congregation.  The basic message, which is effectively the company line passed down, is that the there is no issue with gay people and they welcome them into the church.  However, they do hold the sacrament of marriage as sacred, with one man marrying one woman for the purpose of childbirth. 

I couldn't disagree more with the 2nd part and it has so many holes in it you could drain lettuce, but the first part is a refreshingly modern approach that most would not credit them for.  They still have a long way to go on many topics, and those who find religion bizarre will always do so, but lets not label them with being stuck in the dark ages without actually listening to their more recent thoughts on homesexuality.     

[Monty]

It's not 'the church' so much as religion. Different religions have varying attitudes, but the malign influence of the preachings of bigoted clergy has obviously been felt.

[KevinGage]

Interesting read about Le Saux there. It seemed like he was ostracized as much as anything, for being intelligent. That's a shame in itself in football, but for players to then pick up on that and translate it to him being a "poof" was very sad, and only enforced the fact that some of those aforementioned players were dumb as a bag of spanners. Disappointed to hear about Townsend in that article. He always struck me as a decent guy, but seems even he could take things too far. Maybe it was a Chelsea mentality? I dunno, they seem to have had a lot of knobheads in their squad over the years, and still do.

According to Cant'scorino, Townsend, Wise and Jones ran things during his time there. 

[Concrete John]

It's not 'the church' so much as religion. Different religions have varying attitudes, but the malign influence of the preachings of bigoted clergy has obviously been felt.

True and I'm only speaking from the perspective of the Catholic faith, but having been raised as a one and now being 38, I can honestly say I've never heard a priest, either privately or publicly, say anything homophobic.

My point being that are we assuming that the church is homophobic or actually speaking from experience or knowledge of something either read or seen?  Other than quoting passages of the bible, of course.  To me it's like going back to the 70s or 80s and someone saying "All football fans are hooligans" without ever having actually gone to a game.

[Monty]

It's not 'the church' so much as religion. Different religions have varying attitudes, but the malign influence of the preachings of bigoted clergy has obviously been felt.

True and I'm only speaking from the perspective of the Catholic faith, but having been raised as a one and now being 38, I can honestly say I've never heard a priest, either privately or publicly, say anything homophobic.

My point being that are we assuming that the church is homophobic or actually speaking from experience or knowledge of something either read or seen?  Other than quoting passages of the bible, of course.  To me it's like going back to the 70s or 80s and someone saying "All football fans are hooligans" without ever having actually gone to a game.

The Bible is, as you allude to, a problem. I wasn't raised religious but I went to church schools with services twice a week, and I can confirm that nothing homophobic was said. However, two caveats: firstly, homophobic stuff hasn' t been preached against openly to any great extent in this country for a very long time and not out of ecumenicism, but because 'we don't talk about those sorts of things'; secondly, there are places in the world where many religions (and I'm sorry to say, despite the new pontiff, your church as well) have a really poisonous influence on the lives of local homosexual populations, whose lives are made a misery by the faithful.