Toon Saint

Because I didn't engage with your whiggish history of the civil rights movement that all but denied Black Americans any agency? Or because I didn't agree with you comparing a liberal attitudes towards homosexuality with tolerating the sexual abuse of children? I don't need your patronizing put-downs thanks. Such a cheap and easy thing to say when I've had to battle with the pack mentality of so many of the posters on here. I'd be happy to air my private views in public, not so sure some of you on here would be.

Soz Goebbels. Here was me thinking that a thread discussing homophobia in football would allow me to do so. Notice you didn't intervene or criticise anyone else for derailing the thread with homophobic barbs, gay slurs at me and others, or eugenic theories. You've hardy engaged with anything I said, you just told me to take it to another thread as soon as your strange theories were criticised by a few members. Funny that. But don't let that stop you from acting the Saintsweb overlord.

God you like to obliterate nuance and context from everything don't you? The operative word there is -esque - I never said anyone made any specific Bernard Manning jokes, just outdated prejudiced comments of a similar mould. I'm not gonna wade through your tide of tedium to flag those back up for everyone else, I'm sure you are as equally capable.

Your message tells me one thing, your kisses another #confused

Good comedy IMO. Saw a Dave Gorman stand up last year with a section that was devoted to Daily Mail reader comments. Delivery, and content of comments, had me in stitches. The joke was on the people making those comments. Things can obviously be funny without a 'serious message', but I just don't find heavily prejudiced Bernard Manning-esque jokes funny in this day and age. It's a personal opinon, I have no doubt people will disagree with me (as has been proven). Get your comedy fix from Tom and Jerry for all I care! (Orchard Saint)

No it's both. You don't seem to realise that good comedy (not all comedy, I know) works by shedding light on social prejudice/ignorance of the character - you just seem to get your kicks from repeating the prejudiced lines. Family Guy is just too self-consciously 'shock value' for my liking. Gets its laughs by ridiculing celebrities/minority groups but doesn't really have a message or anything to say beyond that.

Bearsy actually has a bit of charm, and I sense, intelligence; your jokes (in this thread at least) are just a bit dull and ignorant. Subective I know, but I think this is far funnier and more socially conscious than the 'shock value' Family Guy dross that you just posted. [video=youtube;Q9-xvxEqjtw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9-xvxEqjtw

You can call me gay all you like but please don't ever call me a f^cking Madonna fan.

Oh, I'm glad you are so generous with your prejudice. It's a lie to say you have made a 'couple' of jokes when we both know you are probably in double figures, and I've noticed you trolling ART about being gay before on other threads...so you clearly have form. Don't get so rattled just because we are now talking about your fascination with the subject. It's nice to hear that you agree with the use of the word faggot, are you coming round?

Yes, it's likely that someone openly standing up for gay rights in football is more repressed than a man obsessed with making gay jokes on a message board and denying all existence of homophobia. You should read some of Jonathan Dollimore's work on the 'perverse dynamic' - I think it captures you perfectly darling

A victim of abuse, whether domestic, physical, mental, racial, homophobic, or sexual, is not always inclined to open up about their experiences if they perceive that their immediate environment is one that is hostile to them or won't take them seriously. There's been enough of this in the news recently in relation to historical claims of child abuse. You seem to work from the assumption that if gay footballers aren't coming out and complaining about abuse then it doesn't exist. DuncanRG already posted the link about 8 gay footballers not wanting to 'come out' publicly because of the abuse that they fear, but still you dismiss the occurrence of homophobia in football based on lack of 'evidence'. Could it not be that the very social environment that gay footballers inhabit precludes them from telling others of the abuse that they face? Anecdotal accounts certainly point towards that. You are simply willing the problem away as it confronts your own prejudices (which have been amply demonstrated). Of course you don't, but that's because you are ignorant and stupid.

You've spent most of this thread making unfunny jokes about gay people, and then you have the temerity to tell us that there is no problem with homophobia in football. Why don't you show some consistency in what you say for once?

No, your own prejudiced comments have confirmed that.

My 'blind narrow minded mind'? I found your premise that homosexual men do not possess the adequate genetic make up to become professional sportsmen or footballers completely objectionable. Anton Hysen, son of former Liverpool player Glenn Hysen, is gay and plays professional football in Sweden. How does your theory follow there? I'd suggest that gay men have been socialised into pursuing other interests and hobbies because they feel excluded from competitive sport environments, a culture reinforced by a lot of the prejudice evidenced on this thread. Surely you indicate some sort of genetic deficiency as in effect you are suggesting that gay persons do not possess the genetic fabric, whether physically or mentally, to become eminent in sporting fields? As I said before, mixing eugenicist theories with sexual politics has some pretty terrible historical precedents, especially when couched in the language of scientific neutrality and impartiality that you so carefully replicate. I'd suggest you read up on them before accusing me of having a 'narrow-minded mind'.

You are bringing the debate onto sexual practise here, and it's not what I was discussing beforehand. Might not have been great for your kids but you get 'saddos' in all forms of life not just gay people. I've got no opinion on what consenting adults get up to in private or public, but to conflate being gay with non-consensual sex with kids is hysterical and extremely prejudiced in itself.

Reductio ad absurdum. Oh yes, the logical consequence of me suggesting we have a more accepting culture towards gay people in football is that I am demanding a child-sex free-for-all. FFS. Sorry but do you even know what you are saying? You sound like you have had some traumatic events growing up around public lavs that you might want to share as well...

I said that a prejudiced society can inhibit people feeling comfortable with their sexuality, within the context of gay persons in football. You brought peadophilia into it as though that is on the same level, and the only thing you have proved is that you are a complete sh1te.

Why did you bring sexual attraction to kids into it as though that is legitmated through a discussion of homosexuality in football? You are talking nonsense.

Are you comparing being gay to being a pederast? Don't talk sh1t all of your life.

The argument about the 'Yid army' chant is that a lot of Spurs fans, who aren't in fact Jewish, have reclaimed that word as a means to defend themselves from anti-semitic chanting. The debate there is whether those non-Jewish fans have the right to deploy a term that they have no actual affiliation with...but that is for another thread... Why do some people think that because they have never encountered prejudice in life that it does not exist? That is an incredibly naive and insular worldview. Naturally, people do not like being told that they have outdated or prejudiced views so it really doesn't surprise me if people get irked by it. Nor do I particularly care if I am ****ing them off for pointing that out to them. It's a thread designed for the topic of homophobia in football, would you prefer if it was just open to people spewing out gay jokes and pretending that the only problem is with Stonewall for daring to confront the issue? Surely the whole laces movement is an act of gay people defending themselves, but in denying the very existence of a problem you remove or trivialize that potential. While I agree that it is not societies place to tell whether an individual it is ok to 'come out', and I dislike the power dimensions inherent to that process, a prejudiced culture does inhibit a person from feeling comfortable about their sexuality, even on a private level. If you truly feel there is not a problem with homophobia in the game and feel that other football fans are as open-minded as you, wouldn't a more constructive and positive approach be: good initiative, hope to see lots of PL footballers wearing the laces, not a problem for me, couldn't care less about a footballers sexuality etc... Instead this whole denial culture and moving the debate onto things such as swearing - which is about manners and personal conduct, not prejudice - seems just like an avoidance tactic to me.

You can trivialize it all you want and there might be some debate about whether it is the best approach. At least it has a decent visual appeal and communicates something more than your drivel. The next 'out' gay footballer might not necessarily remark on the laces, but it could be that because so many of his peers actually stood up for the cause by wearing them that encouraged him to openly discuss his sexuality. Are you a straight Hypo? Ridiculous guilt-by-association logic that simmers under the surface of most of the posts on here. Do your own research or just continue to live on in blinkered ignorance. I know gay fans who have been offended by homophobic chants at football matches, and also straight fans who have been offended by homophobic chants. Obviously this will differ from club to club and the nature of the chants will change depending on the fixture. It might not necessarily stop them going to football games but if it is enough to make them feel uncomfortable then something needs to be done about it. I'm not going to disclose their accounts to a stranger on the web, but what I will say is that there is a reason that Stonewall are pursuing this current laces campaign and why Kick It Out have an app for people to report homophobic abuse during football matches. These initiatives don't just appear from nowhere, they come from a groundswell of resistance against such abuse. This was only a few weeks ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-23962267 I invented homophobia in football? Next joke. This very thread proves my points a hundred times over. So many people claiming no problems exist and then queuing up to make snide remarks or outwardly homophobic comments. One poster even bringing genetic deficiencies into it - unbelievable thing to say. Obviously wasting my breath speaking to most of you lot as you can't see the wood for the trees. Cue another gay joke... A swastika would do. A man who revels in his own prejudice, how f^cking sad.

I think I found the problem.

The point I was making was not that I had canvassed black and gay people on how they feel about prejudiced chanting, but that it is disingenuous for a straight male fan to speak on the behalf of gay people and say that the chants are not offensive or that there is no problem with homophobia on the terraces.

Canvassed many black or gay fans across that wide section did you? Remarkable that you can compare prejudiced chants to swearing as though they are next on the hit-list of some great PC project gone berserk. Couldn't ever be outdated (non) opinions like yours that are part of the problem could it?

1) It reinforces a culture where gay footballers are afraid to 'come out' 2) Just because the nature of the chant is generalised doesn't preclude people taking personal offence to it. 3) Hard to say what somebody else will find offensive when you haven't been in that minority position (i.e. black, disabled, gay) 4) When we have had so many government backed initiatives supporting the goal of kicking racism out of football, then I guess there are a fair number of people out there who are bothered about what is chanted at a football match. In my opinion, rightly so.