The New York Times Friday profiled two straight athletes, wrestler Hudson Taylor (pictured left) and 2003 World Cup winning rugby star Ben Cohen (right). They are two straight Allys. If you’re unfamiliar with the term Ally, it means a pro-gay straight person. By pro-gay, I don’t mean someone who’s okay with us, I mean someone who actively works to better the lives of gays.
Athletes support many causes in the twilight of their careers, but Cohen just announced his retirement from rugby to start the Ben Cohen Stand Up Foundation. No he hasn’t decided to pursue a career in comedy, he plans to tackle bullying in schools and homophobia. Now, Taylor attracted widespread notice when he wore an HRC (yellow equal sign against blue) sticker on his helmet during matches. Taylor then launched Athlete Ally, a pledge for all athletes to sign against homophobia. Several thousand have already signed.
No American male athlete in a major sport has come out while he is playing. This is hopefully the first step of many towards making sports a safer place for gays to be themselves. Without all that tension, they might actually be able to get their heads in the game.
As Cohen told the New York Times, “It’s massively important [for me to start this foundation]. Massively. …I’m the other side of that bridge.”
A beautiful image.
