LGBTQ+ inclusion and Religion Debate in Football

It's unfair on the rest of the squad who may have family members or friends in that community who they actively wish to support.

You can't force someone to participate, but equally, and more importantly, you can't force the entire rest of the squad not to participate.

In any case, it's a week of raising the issue in sport, it's not an ongoing obligation. What's the big deal?
 
My religion (which I just founded) says that anyone who uses the phrase 'keep politics out of football' is a melt. You can't judge me for this and you must respect my disdain for you.
 
We need to see the jacket in question.
 
Has a bunch of comments been moved from the football forum to here? Comments are way dumber than they usually are.
 
Invictus said:
Respecting people's religions has always been a bit of a slippery slope, to be fair. Where's the upper threshold, if there is one (there has to be nuance and some sort of limit to acceptance, right?) Does this respect have to be absolute and boundless, no matter what the religious belief?

There are obvious practical concerns, given the commonplace nature of religious attitudes which have given shape to the very norms and structures of real societies, and you don't want to rile dogmatists by attempting to address the elephant in the room, you don't want to manufacture social unrest, and so forth. But are organized religions (and associated views and interpretations) fundamentally worthy of our respect, when they've been used to justify mass murder, colonization, classism, slavery, ethnic cleansing, misogyny, homophobia et cetera throughout human history?

Of course, these atrocities have happened, and could have happened, independently of organized religion, there is no doubt about that. Humans, especially large groups of 'em, certainly didn't and don't need the pretext of religion to be cruel to each other, historically or contemporarily.

But organized religion does promote echo chambers of ingroup-outgroup thinking (this polarization tends to be the root of so many issues), leads to consolidation of irrational beliefs (including deleterious ones), provides theological foundations or frameworks to be adhered to (that are not supposed to be publicly questioned in fear of violent reprisals, even now, in many parts of the modern world), serves as a convenient control mechanism for the people who in turn codify and control religion (religious men and the prevailing upper crest of society, in cahoots with each other), and on and on.
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That's the thing, for all of the criticism levelled at religion, some of the most secular societies, such as China and Russia, have atrocious records around lgbt rights and human rights in general.
Islam bears the brunt of the criticism, but tolerance across East and Southeast Asia is very low, where Buddhism and Christianity are most prevalent (barring Indonesia and Malaysia).

Long after the use of religion as justifications for abhorrent practices like colonisation and hate crimes has been peeled back, swathes of people still support these acts. It is hard to separate religion from the structures and institutions that govern society, given it's influence, particularly historically, but people seem to have a natural propensity to hate anything 'other' that we've not shaken off tens of thousands of years' evolution later.
 
Sassy Colin said:
It's unfair on the rest of the squad who may have family members or friends in that community who they actively wish to support.

You can't force someone to participate, but equally, and more importantly, you can't force the entire rest of the squad not to participate.

In any case, it's a week of raising the issue in sport, it's not an ongoing obligation. What's the big deal?
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Agreed
Solius said:
My religion (which I just founded) says that anyone who uses the phrase 'keep politics out of football' is a melt. You can't judge me for this and you must respect my disdain for you.
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Even that is too light - you need to add a good helping of centuries of oppression (which is of course still ongoing).
 
Jippy said:
That's the thing, for all of the criticism levelled at religion, some of the most secular societies, such as China and Russia, have atrocious records around lgbt rights and human rights in general.
Islam bears the brunt of the criticism, but tolerance across East and Southeast Asia is very low, where Buddhism and Christianity are most prevalent (barring Indonesia and Malaysia).

Long after the use of religion as justifications for abhorrent practices like colonisation and hate crimes has been peeled back, swathes of people still support these acts. It is hard to separate religion from the structures and institutions that govern society, given it's influence, particularly historically, but people seem to have a natural propensity to hate anything 'other' that we've not shaken off tens of thousands of years' evolution later.
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Religion isn't necessarily the cause of phobia per se. It's just an extremely effective vehicle to purport said phobia in a systemic way.

If we abolish all religion tomorrow, people will likely be just as shit.
 
Spoony said:
A colleague of mine is a decent bloke(well....)his views of gays and Muslims are mental, though. The man's a Christian who's What's App DP is the Star of David. What's it with the right wing and unconditional support of Israel? Anyway, he gets along with gay folk despite his views.
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Sounds like an asshole who tolerates people because he has to. I wouldn't want to be his team mate.
 
Andy_Cole said:
There is actually mate. My sect has someone on par with the pope. As does Agar Khanis.
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Ah so I guess Shia Muslims have a leader and the Sunni's don't.

Do the different Christian religions all follow the same pope?
 
Bole Top said:
well, is there an example of player not getting along with Maz and not wanting to by any chance?

you were sure he shared locker room with gay players, so they obviously didn't mind each other.
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I would bet some players think he's an absolute asshole and if by any chance one of them is gay I bet they hate his guts.
 
Why can't players who want to wear it, wear it and others do not? What is not acceptable is a United player encouraging or engaging in hate in anyway against any community.
 
Honestly, it's a bit of a PR own goal by the club. They should have consulted the players about these types of principles/beliefs beforehand and come up with a proper strategy to mitigate issues like Nous' views. No matter how much we might disagree with them, these views exist and are common among billions of people in the world, and aren't going to be changed by a rainbow armband or jacket. Amateur hour from the comms department to leave it up to chance/the views of the squad.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
You can’t force anyone to wear that.
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I'm sure I've read about players not being happy to have betting sponsors on their shirts, but they're forced to wear it. So if this jacked is official matchday gear, I'm sure they could force him. They shouldn't, but I bet they could.
 
Not wearing a rainbow is not homophobic. There’s no contravention, there’s no offence.

It might cause offence for the community, but pious religious people across all castes, creeds and faiths would follow the same principle. Mazraoui dealt with this appropriately by keeping it in house without any fuss.

If he cuts an interview tomorrow about the LGBTQ community and states he dislikes the entire community on account of their sexuality, or they should be stoned to death because of the sexuality, then of course there’s a problem.

The club has handled this poorly, and the journalist has a history of opportunism rather than journalism imo.
 
NotoriousISSY said:
Not wearing a rainbow is not homophobic. There’s no contravention, there’s no offence.

It might cause offence for the community, but pious religious people across all castes, creeds and faiths would follow the same principle. Mazraoui dealt with this appropriately by keeping it in house without any fuss.

If he cuts an interview tomorrow about the LGBTQ community and states he dislikes the entire community on account of their sexuality, or they should be stoned to death because of the sexuality, then of course there’s a problem.

The club has handled this poorly, and the journalist has a history of opportunism rather than journalism imo.
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What do you think the reasons are behind them not choosing to wear it and where do you think those reasons stem from?
 
maniak said:
I'm sure I've read about players not being happy to have betting sponsors on their shirts, but they're forced to wear it. So if this jacked is official matchday gear, I'm sure they could force him. They shouldn't, but I bet they could.
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I'm fairly sure Mido and Kanoute wore blank kits at Spurs and Sevilla.
 
If there was an armband everyone was wearing for sick kids with cancer and one player refused to wear it, you'd question why that was. It's just the same thing here.
 
KirkDuyt said:
Religion isn't necessarily the cause of phobia per se. It's just an extremely effective vehicle to purport said phobia in a systemic way.

If we abolish all religion tomorrow, people will likely be just as shit.
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It is for sure, but people's propensity to be awful sure isn't reliant on it. The cultural drivers seem as big as religious ones in some places.
 
There are aspects of the abrahamic religions that I'm deeply uncomfortable with but I'd still be happy to publicly express my support for followers of those religions to be treated equally. The clubs and the league should be educating all players on this.
 
JPRouve said:
That point makes little sense for two reasons. The first one is that religions are fundamentally exclusionary and never told anyone that they were inclusive. And the second point is that all encompassing inclusivity is BS, no one actually adhere to it, everyone is only inclusive when it comes to things they themselves believe in.

Now in an ideal world whoever wanted to wear the jacket would have and whoever didn't want to wear the jacket wouldn't have but the reality is that everyone would have been hounded by the opposing side. Because both sides are largely made of bigots.
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Good post.
 
Spoony said:
A colleague of mine is a decent bloke(well....)his views of gays and Muslims are mental, though. The man's a Christian who's What's App DP is the Star of David. What's it with the right wing and unconditional support of Israel? Anyway, he gets along with gay folk despite his views.
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Same with a lot of my Hindu in-laws. Very kind and tolerant on pretty much everything, but then weirdly fundamental when it comes to gay rights. They're actually very close to a lesbian couple though, one of who's brother married into the family. Not sure if they'd get along with all gay people despite their views or it's specifically an issue they have with gay men.
 
Sassy Colin said:
It's unfair on the rest of the squad who may have family members or friends in that community who they actively wish to support.

You can't force someone to participate, but equally, and more importantly, you can't force the entire rest of the squad not to participate.

In any case, it's a week of raising the issue in sport, it's not an ongoing obligation. What's the big deal?
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Is it known if it was the team who decided to not wear them so Maz doesn't get singled out or was it a higher up saying do this to try and avoid the current shitstorm? I don't have an athletic subscription.
 
Andy_Cole said:
Or a show of support for Palestine? Oh wait.
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Whilst I do actually agree with that, it's obviously a tad more complex in people's minds than sick kids which is a very straight forward issue that no sane person should be against (I also think no sane person should be for what's happening in Gaza but here we are). Imo it's the same for gay people but I know that's not the case for everyone.
 
Solius said:
Whilst I do actually agree with that, it's obviously a tad more complex in people's minds than sick kids which is a very straight forward issue that no sane person should be against. Imo it's the same for gay people but I know that's not the case for everyone.
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I don’t think it’s straight forward though as it is against certain religions.

I’m not a fan of the PL forcing some things on players whilst banning others. It’s not right. This was an own goal by the FA. I thought there would be a few refusing to wear poppies last month too.
 
Andy_Cole said:
I don’t think it’s straight forward though as it is against certain religions.
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Which is archaic as feck. The same people who wrote those words would have their mind blown by the flavour in a dorito.
 
A lot of people don't understand the Muslim view, it's not about hating LGBTQ people, they are free to do whatever they like, Muslims are not allowed to promote something prohibited in Islam and will not promote it.

This is not exclusive to Islam but all 3 Abrahamic religions. He is not hating on LGBTQ, he just exercised his right to not wear it and should not be forced to do it in the same way a LGBTQ person should not be forced to do something they don't want to.
 
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