{"id":180184,"date":"2018-12-08T05:26:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T05:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180184"},"modified":"2018-12-11T05:37:57","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T05:37:57","slug":"premier-league-clubs-rainbow-laces-posts-draw-homophobic-responses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180184","title":{"rendered":"Premier League clubs’ Rainbow Laces posts draw homophobic responses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Molly Moss \u2013 The Guardian Dec 7, 2018<\/h1>\n
\"A<\/a>

A rainbow corner flag on a Premier League clubs pitch. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Premier League football teams including Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea have received thousands of homophobic responses on social media for showing solidarity with Stonewall\u2019s pro-LGBT Rainbow Laces campaign<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past two weeks the clubs have been posting pictures on social media of rainbow-striped logos and messages to back the annual campaign, which was launched by Stonewall in 2013 to kick out homophobia in football.<\/span><\/p>\n

A post on Manchester United\u2019s Facebook page in support of the campaign received more than 43,000 \u201cangry\u201d responses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fans\u2019 comments including \u201cSay No to LGBT\u201d, \u201cGod created Adam and Eve not Adam and Lukaku\u201d and \u201cGaychester United\u201d each received more than 10,000 likes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar homophobic messages were left on the pages of Arsenal and Chelsea<\/a><\/strong><\/span> after they updated their profile pictures to include rainbow-coloured logos and messages of support for the campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

The gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the responses were \u201cshocking\u201d and a wake-up call to the FA and clubs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cQuite clearly, the existing campaigns [to curb homophobia in football] have not been sufficient,\u201d he said. \u201cEven so, I suspect that these bigoted comments are coming from a hardcore minority and do not reflect the views of most fans. Unfortunately social media does tend to attract and give a voice to people with extreme views.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirsty Clarke, Stonewall\u2019s director of sport, said: \u201cIt\u2019s great to see so many sports associations across the UK proudly championing LGBT equality as part of our Rainbow Laces campaign. The backlash from a small minority online is a reminder of just how vital it is for all of us to do our bit to help make sport everyone\u2019s game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s campaign is about giving people confidence to be active allies and show their visible support for LGBT people, either on or off the pitch. It\u2019s been heartening to see that allyship in action, particularly on social media, where we\u2019ve seen countless messages from people who aren\u2019t LGBT calling out abuse from fellow fans and highlighting why their attitudes have no place in sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

An Arsenal<\/a><\/strong><\/span> spokesperson said the club\u2019s policies made it clear that discriminatory behaviour would not be tolerated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very proud to be supporting the Rainbow Laces campaign and do a great deal of work to promote equality across all levels of the game,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cAs Facebook is the platform where these views are being shared, we are ensuring that all of our Arsenal for Everyone initiatives and messages, plus ways to report anti-LGBT language on a match day, are posted via this platform.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The campaign to convince us that homosexuality is \u201cnormal\u201d hits a snag. Soccer club\u2019s show of solidarity with LGBT campaign draws an angry response from fans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-historic-sexual-abuse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180184"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180197,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180184\/revisions\/180197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}