Soft Balls

Last November, a Seattle, WA, court ordered the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance to pay an undisclosed settlement amount to three men who were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series because of their perceived heterosexuality. The men's sexual preferences were apparently called into question when a protest was filed against their team for violating a league rule limiting teams to two heterosexual players per team, a rule which I assume was created to ensure every team had at least two "pitchers." The aggrieved players countered claiming they were not straight, but bisexual, and because they were not full-blown gay they were being discriminated against.

In response to the complaint, lodged by other teams in the league, a protest committee was assembled to question each man about their sexuality and lifestyle. Then, according to the report, the committee voted on whether or not the man being questioned was, in fact, gay. The committee ultimately judged only two of the five men subject to the probe were gay. Those two were handed a single red rose and allowed to continue to the elimination round... Okay, that last part didn't happen.

Anyway, the other three men were determined to be "not gay." But here's the rub, um, issue. The three men appeared to have met some qualification at some level to support their assertion that they were bisexual. According to NAGAAA rules, bisexual is considered to be gay for team roster purposes. Anyone who follows sports recognizes this as an important point because that means being bisexual doesn't count against what could only be described (by me) as the heterosexual hard cap (think "salary cap for penises"). In hetero-layman's terms, you're allowed to fill a roster with switch hitters who can handle any position instead of having a roster that's loaded with catchers.

Perhaps it was the team photo that raised suspicion.

As part of their argument, the players asked the court to throw out the roster limit on straight players as discriminatory, which I don't get. There are only three categories in question here: gay, bisexual and straight. If you are either of the first two, straight discrimination shouldn't be part of your argument, and to me using it kind of implies you're straight. I think this because I played for a church softball league for a couple of years. In order to play, I had to be a member of the church. So guess where I was every week during the season? Back pew with three other "Christians." I got away with it because nobody made me prove I was a Christian. I could have been asked anything about God and, well, I'm not going to get any points for saying I thought about reading the Bible. Likewise, to play in a gay softball league, I don't believe you can get a pass for saying, "Well, I thought about blowing a guy once."

I don't condone the exclusion of one particular lifestyle in favor of another. I've played sports with gay men and gay women, straight women, straight men who played like they were gay, guys with physical disabilities - hell, I played on a team where you'd think we were all disabled. We respected each others' personal differences and got along with our lives. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like that. There exists a need to stay in one's comfort zone, so I understand the importance of establishing an organization subscribing to a certain philosophy that generates acceptance and stimulates member growth openness within that membership, and they should be allowed to make the rules - whether good or not - to maintain that solidarity. Legal precedence has been established to support this. The Boy Scouts come to mind, having successfully prevented the openly gay from participating in their organization (Remember, it's Boy Scouting, not boy scouting).

The establishment of the legitimacy of the rules isn't the question here; the skirting interpretation of the rules is. The NAGAAA, to its credit, moved to clarify the rules regarding bisexual and transgender players, welcoming them as participants, and further stated the disqualifications in question were not consistent with its goal. As one official put it, "We fought hard to protect ourselves and our core identity and I am relieved this issue is finally behind us."

Which, given the circumstances, seemed to be where they'd prefer to put it.