Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport

SPORTSMEN AND women have been at the vanguard of many of society's greatest battles over the years.

The likes of immortals Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe provided beacons of pride for black people throughout America who were railing against gross social inequity throughout the '50s, '60 and '70s.

Waging stoic battles against the odds they, in their own ways, opened the eyes, ears and minds of a nation to a travesty and provided some of the music to the lyrics of great black leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

Marching at the front of the Women's Liberation Movement of the late '60s and early '70s was tennis great Billie-Jean King who, for a dollar, turned women's sport on its head by turning pro and almost single-handedly - through the Virginia Slims Tour - raised women in sport from a novelty and sideshow to a force onto themselves.

Bigotry tumbling down

These legends brought walls of sporting bigotry tumbling down. Of course, there's still work to be done for black and women athletes but the edifice has crumbled thanks to the Robinsons, Alis, Ashes and Kings of this world who played the game on their terms.

However, as these walls have fallen, those bricks of hatred, ignorance and intolerance have apparently been stacked against the final barrier of sporting bigotry - homosexuality.

Journeyman basketballer John Amaechi tilted the sports world off its axis momentarily earlier this month when in his book Man in the Middle, the Englishman revealed he was gay.

This actually created little more than a muted response until fellow retired NBAer Tim Hardaway came out on radio and said he "hated gay people" during a question about how he would react to a homosexual teammate.

To compare the sporting plight of gays with those of blacks and women is a quantum and ill-founded leap but the bottom line, pure and simple, is that it is still a form of bigotry.

After Hardaway's comments, I wondered how I would have reacted if an Aussie Rules or cricket teammate of mine came out in our playing days and said: "Hey guys, guess what? I'm gay."

I sure as hell wouldn't have liked it. In the testosterone-filled rooms of male sport it would have felt like some essence of the collective "we" in the team had been tarnished and diminished.

I'm sad but honest enough to say if he was a good player he would have probably stayed on; if not, he would have been slowly ostracised from our domain.

In the world of sport, even at the vast amateur level, word gets around quickly and any known gay member of an opposing team would have had a huge target marked on his back as foes lined up to be the one to "get the homo".

So, if teammates didn't drive the gay confessor out of the game, the opponents surely would.

Maybe that's why gay team players rarely if ever "come out of the closet" and many homosexuals opt for individual sports.

For such a large group of the population, estimated at about 10 per cent (but who really knows? It would be pretty hard to do a gay census), the homosexual voice in sport is remarkably small with only another tennis legend, like the gay King, speaking up - Martina Navratilova.

She lost millions upon millions of dollars in endorsements because she didn't want to live a lie and told the world she was homosexual.

Most others in sport just don't want to either lose the cash, rock the boat or simply "come out" through fear and shame.

I am no endorser of the gay lifestyle. And I surely would never choose it, but what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms or whatever is their business, not mine.

If it is against nature, that's for the Big Dude Upstairs to decide, not me.

Due to recent media coverage, however, I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority in a country where gunmen, rapists and drug peddlers are safely harboured within communities but, according to deejays, gays must be burned and shot.

On our fair streets 'alleged' gays are caught and then mob justice takes over. Out come the stones and rocks as all and sundry seek to impose the crudest form of 'justice'.

Of course, the Cricket World Cup is coming to town soon and we want to put on our best face for the world. So, I suppose those stones and rocks will be put away until the world departs.

Put away in a closet, I presume.