Are you offended by the gay taunts from opposing fans

[pork pie]

I think it's not in our culture to chant at sports in so far as to hurl racist or homophobic abuse out side of a singular boof head doing it. Certainly not hundreds of people doing it at once.

The only sport that seems to require fans to be segregated is soccer out here. Fans sit in among each other with almost all other sports.

And I don't think people would start a fight, however the people in charge of those sports organisations wouldn't put up with such childish crap.

There was a recent case out here where a football player called another played an effing homo or something like that and the league came down hard on the issue after an umpire reported it. He was fined $3000 and made to undergo an education program.


I simply think 30-40 year old men chanting such drivel would have to be one of the most pathetic sights one could see.

It is very pathetic! If you look on youtube you can see a load of pathetic Palarse scum doing exectly that!

 

[Brovion]

I think it makes Brighton look pretty darn good.

If these sorts of chants went up at other sporting events around the world the sport in question and its fans would round on on those doing it with a fast and speedy course of action.

It makes football crowds seem puerile and idiotic compared to other sports.

After all, who does it make Brighton look bad in the eyes of? The very same morons who start such chants?

Wouldn't give two runny squirts out of the back passage what those twats think.

I'm certainly not defending the chants on aesthetic terms and they do indeed make football crowds look puerile and idiotic. I still want to know though why they are considered 'homophobic' in the same way that the 1970s chants were racist.

 

[HawkTheSeagull]

Im not bothered, though if your saying the chants like "die of aids" - that is over the top and pathetic. "We can see you holding hands" and the other stuff doesnt actually bother me.

We'd be better off not kicking up a stink about it, the more some fans and the club make a scene of it - the more clubs will do it. If you dont complain, then it shows that we really dont actually care, which as the majority show - we dont care.

 

[Market Porter]

How about having a song that acknowledges the statistical probabilities that at Brighton , and all other clubs for that matter, there just may be a few people present of a sufficiently different sexual persuasion to attract opprobrium from a fearful, homophobic minority that has been seized upon as acceptable banter by the majority who would normally not condone such abuse?

We are Brighton
We are Brighton
Super Brighton from the South
We believe there may be gays here
LGBT, equal rights.

Followed by a loud Cooeeeeeee and waving.

Or am I missing the point?

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

St Pauli fans leading the way on the issue.

The intent was to counter the fan culture that too often allows for mass discrimination from within the anonymous crowds at matches. And St. Pauli, who had German football's first openly gay chairman, seems a fitting place for this attempt at change to gain momentum. Here's video of the supporters' choreography before the match....

St. Pauli fans choreograph demonstration against homophobia during match | Dirty Tackle - Yahoo! Sports Canada

So it's not just Albion fans who think it's well out of order.

 

[AndyJD1611]

Some chants such as "does your boyfriend know you're here?" or "we can see you holding hands" don't bother me. Yes, they're a bit tiresome at times but to me, those chants are just banter between fans.

It's when fans are shouting over the segregation areas or on the train stations homophobic abuse and doing hand gestures when I take offense and I think that is what needs to be stopped.

There's a thin line between banter and abuse. Obviously, not everyone in Brighton is gay and there's no reason what-so-ever to abuse gay people. But not everyone up North is poor and un-clean and many areas of the North contain some of the most visually stunning areas the UK has to offer, yet I'm sure many of us will have chanted "it's grim up North" or "you dirty northern *******s" or "in your northern slums" etc etc.

So where do you draw the line between banter and abuse?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

So where do you draw the line between banter and abuse?

Difficult - but it is beyond banter when a group of young teenage lads walking to the stadium are chanted at "do you take it up the arse?" (play-off final in Cardiff).

But mostly simply tiresome.

 

[Oddsocks]

Some chants such as "does your boyfriend know you're here?" or "we can see you holding hands" don't bother me. Yes, they're a bit tiresome at times but to me, those chants are just banter between fans.

It's when fans are shouting over the segregation areas or on the train stations homophobic abuse and doing hand gestures when I take offense and I think that is what needs to be stopped.

There's a thin line between banter and abuse. Obviously, not everyone in Brighton is gay and there's no reason what-so-ever to abuse gay people. But not everyone up North is poor and un-clean and many areas of the North contain some of the most visually stunning areas the UK has to offer, yet I'm sure many of us will have chanted "it's grim up North" or "you dirty northern *******s" or "in your northern slums" etc etc.

So where do you draw the line between banter and abuse?

THIS......When groups of thousands people chant songs at other groups of thousands of people during the game, such as these examples above, it's only stereotyping banter. Not meant to be personal so shouldn't be taken personally. Stereotyping isn't necessarily abusive. Trouble is, we live in an over-sensitive society where everything we say is analysed and taken out of context a lot of the time!

But when small groups or individuals verbally attack individuals at stations and on trains, that's when the line is crossed from harmless banter to abusive provocation. But those minorities will never stop unfortunately.

 

[father_and_son]

Personally not bothered as confident in my own sexuality, but it is offensive and really don't like it in front of the kids. Our kids should be growing up in a better world than we did and Neanderthals with homophobic chants don't make the world better.

Having said that, every club/country/tribe/whatever has some "stereotype" (Americans are 'all' fat, French are all 'lazy', Germans have 'no sense of humour', etc) and I'd rather be 'gay' than 'pikey'!

 

[John Byrnes Mullet]

Who cares, football banter is all about taking the pee. I don't care is someone calls me a white man or a gay man. I am white but I am not gay.... England has always been such a great country because of freedom of speech but now we are almost coming close to a kind of communist regime where you are unable to open your mouth anymore. I work with racists and homophobic people everyday but I know in my heart what I think of them. They don't need to arrested, because they are in their own sad situation of being ignorant people.

 

[Jameson]

The irony is that of all the gay people (male and a lot of females too) I've known since working in Brighton/Lewes etc (30+ years); none were born and bred here, all have moved here from Wales, Manchester, Bolton, London, Midlands etc etc ... in fact you name it, there are gay people from every corner of the UK who live here.

But I have voted to stop it; it's well beyond a joke and much of it is now absolutely vile (never used to be). What I can't understand is that stewards and police stand there while its openly displayed. If I stood up, jestured and said to visiting/home supporters there "I'm going to kick your f****g heads in" I would rightly be arrested for threatening words and behavour. So fairness and consistency are required in terms of the law.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Who cares, football banter is all about taking the pee. I don't care is someone calls me a white man or a gay man. I am white but I am not gay.... England has always been such a great country because of freedom of speech but now we are almost coming close to a kind of communist regime where you are unable to open your mouth anymore. I work with racists and homophobic people everyday but I know in my heart what I think of them. They don't need to arrested, because they are in their own sad situation of being ignorant people.

Because you've never suffered from discrimination, it's ok. 1 in 5 gay people commit suicide, it obviously does affect them.

 

[Sweeney Todd]

At Forest, I had to sit in the Brian Clough Stand. There were some real cavemen around me. You can imagine what I had to listen to.

 

[Grizz]

Thing is to most people on here its just "banter" between fans, don't understand what the fuss is about, its all harmless fun inside the stadium etc etc, but its not just about inside the stadium. I haven't read the whole thread, but looking at the first 3 or 4 pages many try to distinguish between what's acceptable inside the stadium and what's acceptable outside the stadium. You just can't do that, its against the law to express homophobic insults, be they collectively or individually end of, but I'm not naive enough to think that it'll be wholly stamped out. They can't do that with racism, so they've got no chance with homophobia, especially when the FA really doesn't give a shit and pays lip service to the cause because they have to.

I applaud the club for trying to take a stand on it, they're trying to reflect their community and feel that this is something they should do something about. I didn't come out until my late 20's and whilst I don't find a majority of the chants offensive, I do find it sad and it does get me down that many still deem it acceptable. I was really surprised that the group of lads I go watch the Albion with both home and away just don't join in now. I never asked them to, but they just don't and that heartens my spirits, because in all honesty it does put a downer on a match day to hear all that nonsense. Its not being over sensitive, but having lived with it for so long and the enjoyment I get out of going to see the Albion, it feels like that escape from life has been taken away from me as well. Yeah yeah, i hear people say, well that's what you get for supporting Brighton, you wouldn't get it anywhere else, but why should it be that way.

The other reason I applaud the stance of the club is that is an educational thing as well. There are now anything from 25-29,000 every home game now and there's a lot of kids and teenagers attending. If they see the authorities/club being accepting of such an attitude inside the stadium, then they'll more than likely think that that's acceptable outside the stadium, not just directly after the match, but actually in their daily lives. They see grown men sling all this abuse about being gay for 90 minutes and whilst they make that conscious choice to do so (many thinking its just banter and not being homophobic), they more than likely just leave it there and wouldn't dream of actually saying those things to a gay person in daily life. Kids are so impressionable and if dad, uncle or elder brother do it then its got to be ok. It isn't, and I'm sure none of them take time to sit down with their kid and tell them oh its just banter lad. If the stance the club takes upsets a few people, but actually stops one kid/teenager/adult from being bullied or abused about being gay, then that's great, I'm all for it.

I doubt I've expressed myself very well, but there you go, thought I'd put in my twopenneth.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I think the OP is completely playing into the hands of opposition fans to turn the issue of their homophobic chants (meant playfully or viciously) into an issue of whether we feel offended or not.

Because if we say we are 'offended' it will get framed into an issue of us being 'over-sensitive' and will encourage them even more. If we say we are not 'offended' it will get framed into terms of it being OK to carry making homophobic chants.

No, homophobic chants deserve to be challenged irrespective of whether they are considered offensive or not, principly to expose the fans who use them as the tiresome, unintelligent, unoriginal bores that they are. We should reserve for them the same disdain that we should reserve for people that find the predictable humour of Stan Boardman and Bernard Manning funny.

 

[CT1]

Isn't it fairly homophic to be offended by someone calling you gay? It would certainly be racist if you were offended to be called black. Unless of course it's derogatory and you are black or have black relations.

The chant "your gay and you know you are" is nothing to be offended by because firstly, if you know you are gay you have nothing to be ashamed of. You'd only take offence if you felt it was derogatory. Secondly, if you aren't gay and don't feel such a chant to be derogatory then you shouldn't be offended. If you were to feel offended then that would suggest you weren't comfortable with gays because they are some what inferior, inhumane or something along those lines. That to me is homophobia.

You may argue that it's thuggish football teens, of course it's derogatory. However I honestly think that sometimes it's just sung by away fans to wind up those who have a problem with gay people. Songs that are directly and obviously homophic are of course a huge cause for concern. But ones such as the one in the above paragraph really are harmless. I for one haven't a problem with such chants.

 

[Weststander]

The chant is sung against the almost entirely straight Albion fan-base, as a wind up and attempted insult, in the same way that Albion fans sing against Pikeys, Northern b's, etc

There is no evidence that 2,000 Millwall, CP or Cardiff fans singing this, in any way, want to harm homosexuals. It is entirely a chant to wind up especially the 'macho' Albion fans who are in turn singing against the opposing fans.

This is entirely different from chants aimed against an individual black person, which few would condone.

 

[pork pie]

The chant is sung against the almost entirely straight Albion fan-base, as a wind up and attempted insult, in the same way that Albion fans sing against Pikeys, Northern b's, etc

There is no evidence that 2,000 Millwall, CP or Cardiff fans singing this, in any way, want to harm homosexuals. It is entirely a chant to wind up especially the 'macho' Albion fans who are in turn singing against the opposing fans.

This is entirely different from chants aimed against an individual black person, which few would condone.

Are you sure? There are loads of "friends of Dorothy" on here. Do you read some of the posts? I was shocked.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

Isn't it fairly homophic to be offended by someone calling you gay? .

It depends upon the meaning that people at the receiving end arrive at. If the meaning is 'how dare you call me gay. I'm not an effing p**f!' then yes. If it's 'you hurt my feelings by not acknowledging me for my raging heterosexuality, such a focal point of who I am' then no. As I said earlier, it's better for us to shift the focus away from whether we are offended or not, and start treating the homophobic chanters as uncouth bores who lack social skills and still find knock knock jokes the height of wit.

 

[Titus]

1 in 5 gay people commit suicide

Absolute rollocks!