A rugby team made up at least partially of New York firefighters forfeited a game to a gay rugby team. Link. The story isn't well-written, but it appears that one of the FDNY guys approached the gay team and asked if any of the players were HIV-positive. Upon being informed that some were, the firefighter team decided to forfeit rather than play.
Now the guys are being called ignorant and backward. Are these representatives of the same department who stormed the twin towers? The ones we praised for their nobility? Now they're just ignorant bigots, even though they take HIV risks every day with their jobs and save everyone, gay or straight, without asking questions?
Critics say the HIV concerns isn't legitimate and that the firefighters merely didn't want to play against a group of homosexuals. Could be. But the thing is, does that make the firefighters wrong? By all accounts, these are red-blooded American men--heroes in many post-9/11 eyes--yet they don't want to wrestle and scrum with homosexuals. Has anyone considered that their reaction might be normal?
