NHL Harassed, Boycotted By Anti-Gay Lobby
Hey, remember Brian Rushfeldt of the Canadian Family Action Coalition? In December, Brian called on Canadians to boycott hockey because of what he called the NHL’s promotion “of an 11-year-old boy as the poster child for gay sex.”
Now, what Brian was actually refering to is an independent film entitled Breakfast With Scot, which licensed the Toronto Maple Leafs’ logo from the NHL. The film, which just finished shooting, is about a macho hockey player whose life is transformed when he and his gay partner become the guardian of an 11-year-old boy. Paul Brown, the producer, described the comedy as a “crowd pleaser in the spirit of Billy Elliot or About a Boy—movies that celebrate the uniqueness of children, and how they can teach adults.”
Although this is enough to give Rushfeldt a hernia, the hockey boycott isn’t going quite as well as planned. As a result, the anti-gay lobby appears to have switched to Plan B, teaming together with other lobbyists to start an email campaign harassing the Leafs’ president, Richard Peddie. Americans for Truth, a US-based anti-gay organisation, even posted Peddie’s email address online, flooding his mailbox with what he called “raw,” “live,” and “dissapointing” emails.
Former team captain, Rick Vaive, said that both the Canadian Family Action Coalition and Americans for Truth need to “get over it:”
It is time people realized that [homosexuality] is part of real life. It doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is, or what your sexual preference is, or what your religious beliefs are—we all have to get along. So get over it.
Well put! Though, personally, I’d have liked to see the hockey boycott continue. Given the right resources, I’m sure that lobbyists could have convinced Canadians to embrace an exciting new national pastime: Jesus Ball.
- Leafs brass face backlash for “promoting” homosexuality [National Post]
