Northern Ireland Sports Minister needs education about Gay Sports

The Northern Ireland government’s sports minister, Edwin Poots, said Feb. 19 that he doesn’t understand why gays need their own sports teams.

Poots was quoted “I just cannot fathom why people see the necessity to develop an apartheid in sport. “It would be unacceptable to produce an all-black rugby team or an all-white team or an all-Chinese team. To me, it’s equally unacceptable to produce an all-homosexual rugby team, and I find it remarkable that people who talk so much about inclusivity and about having an equal role in society would then go down the route of exclusion.”

He was commenting about a local gay rugby team. He seemed to be unaware that gay and lesbian teams welcome heterosexual players and many teams have heterosexual players on their teams. We need to get this message out to educate our elected officials and public.

Kelly Stevens