Debate:Why are there so few homosexual athletes

Debate question: Why are there so few homosexual athletes, especially in the United States?

To me this seems to be a very strange phenomenon, since the homosexual agenda would have you believe that homosexuals are present everywhere. Yet in sports they seem to be lacking. I think there's a few reasons. First off, in sports, you have to be strong-willed to succeed, yet homosexuals were weak-willed enough to succumb to their temptations. Secondly, sports help reaffirm the young athletes with people of the same gender. Boys unconsciously observe how other boys act and model their behavior on this; the same with girls. This is one of the reasons Dr. James Dobson encourages parents to have their children play sports -- it helps discourage the gender dissociation which is one of the causes of homosexuality. In that vein, it's not surprising that the majority of homosexuals in sports come from individual sports, such as tennis, golf, figure skating or diving. In team sports, the players have to be like-minded with the others to form an effective team, so if one of them is having distracting thoughts, the whole team suffers. The homosexuals become a liability for teamwork and either must adopt a straight lifestyle or leave the sport. This is why there are so few homosexual athletes. Opinions welcome. -Foxtrot 19:13, 3 November 2008 (EST)

I know professional athletes tend to not be gay, but I'm not sure the trend extends to amateur athletes. When I was in high school, nearly a third of our football team was openly gay. Maybe the drive needed to become a professional athlete is not common in many homosexuals, but because amateur sports require less drive, their weak will is successfully hidden? TGeary 19:20, 3 November 2008 (EST)

If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? I just want to place when you were in high school - recently, last decade, older? -Foxtrot 19:40, 3 November 2008 (EST)

This was three years ago, in a school in southern California. TGeary 19:59, 3 November 2008 (EST)

Maybe the sports world environment is more hostile to gay people? That would both discourage gay people from entering the sports world and make any gay people in the sports world less likely to be public about it. LiamG 19:41, 3 November 2008 (EST)

I hear that argument a lot, but I don't buy it. How is the sports world more hostileto gay people than the business world or the military? We wouldn't have Don't Ask Don't Tell if there weren't a sizeable minority of homosexuals in the military. But in sports no one's suggesting Don't Ask Just Play, simply because the homosexuals aren't there to demand it. -Foxtrot 19:47, 3 November 2008 (EST)

Foxtrot, did you participate in any sports in junior high or high school? I ask because I went out for several sports in the 1980's, and it seems hard for me to believe that someone who did would have to ask whether such an environment is (or at least was) hostile to gays. It was an absurdly hypermasculine environment and flagrantly hostile to homosexuality. All the athletes were 'motivated' with being called antigay slurs for any perceived deficit in performance. How many laps have you run with a coach calling you a bunch of XXXs? How many times have you been berated for not beating those XXX from the other school? How often have you XXXs had to do extra wind sprints? Hit harder, you XXX! Stop XXX XXX XXX and hustle! If you were the only Christian on a team of Muslims that constantly used anti-Christian slurs, how long would you stick with the sport? Would you openly declare yourself Christian and risk ostracism or physical abuse? Could you keep it up for the ten or more years needed to make it to the major leagues of your chosen sport? Especially when it's so easy for a coach to put someone else on the field when the scouts are in the stands?

Maybe things are different in school sports now; I certainly hope so. Still, it would take years for changes in the entry-level sports culture to trickle up to the high-level sports culture - especially since changes have to come from coaches who came up in the traditional system.--Brossa 20:22, 3 November 2008 (EST)

Yet, military service requires the same things cited above (strong will, teamwork). BHarlan 19:58, 3 November 2008 (EST)

Hmm well consider the percentages, only a very small percentage of people are homosexual and out of that even less would even consider becoming a proffesional athelete. I just think that maybe a lot of atheletes are scared to come out about their sexuality because of the reasons that foxtrot quoted up above, because sport is seen as very gender oriented, they're intimidated into not breaking the mold. Just a thought. --Bolly 19:54, 3 November 2008 (EST)