A player for the Super Bowl-bound San Francisco 49ers gave a controversial, anti-gay interview just days ahead of the NFL’s championship game.
Speaking with shock jock Artie Lange, cornerback Chris Culliver said he’s not OK with gay players in the NFL or on his team.
“I don’t do the gay guys man,” Culliver said, according to Yahoo. “I don’t do that. No, we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.”
Culliver went on to say that gays would not be welcomed in the locker room, but if they remained closeted, he might be all right with them playing.
“Yeah, come out 10 years later,” he said.
“How progressive!,” Deadspin’s Tom Ley quipped, noting that the “interview came to a hurried conclusion at that point.”
The question of whether or not gay players would be accepted in professional sports has been in the news lately, as some media professionals speculated whether or not Notre Dame player Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend was a cover for his sexuality.
Te’o has since turned down the gay rumors, but the scandal re-opened the conversation about sexual orientation in the National Football League.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis said it’s likely he played with gay players during his career, although none of them were fully out.
“Because [the sport] is so testosterone driven, it’d be really, really difficult for a gay player to really stand up and say, ‘Hey, I’m gay and an NFL football player,'” Bettis told HuffPost Live. “And you don’t know how the teams are going to respond to that as well.”
But at the same time, he said, as long as they perform well on the field, he wouldn’t have a problem with openly gay teammates.
UPDATE: Culliver has since apologized for his remarks in a follow-up interview.
Chris Culliver has apologized for controversial remarks he made about the possibility of gay players in the NFL.
“The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel,” the San Francisco 49ers cornerback said in a statement as posted on the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) website. “It has taken me seeing them in print to realize that they are hurtful and ugly. Those discriminating feelings are truly not in my heart.”
He then concluded, “Further, I apologize to those who I have hurt and offended, and I pledge to learn and grow from this experience.”
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ORIGINAL SOURCE: huffingtonpost.com
Article and Picture Courtesy of The Huffington Post
