On September 4 at 6:34 pm, this thread was started on notice being taken of the change of the Flames Facebook profile picture to a rainbow flag backed version of the team's logo.
Interestingly, the thread has contained much discussion of the Flames various community involvement including comparing supporting sick kids to marching in parades - straight or otherwise.
On September 4 at 10:30 am, another development had happened on the Flames Facebook page...they added a post that, to me, answers all of the discussion and debates going on here:
https://www.facebook.com/NHLFlames/p...53565716843704
A little toddler named Dominic Rooney died of leukemia. His sexual orientation could never be an issue...because he died before anyone could even bother to consider it.
Do Dominic's parents give any care in the world that the Flames paid a small (and I might add heart-wrenching) tribute to his life by posting on a website with a rainbow in their profile picture? My goodness I hope not.
Does anyone here really care whether the marriage Dominic might have grown up to have would have been to a girl or a boy?
Does anyone here really care that the Flames have gone out of their way to try to in some small way ease the pain of people who lost their child?
If the answer to that last question is, "no", then how could anyone in the world possibly care that the Flames are bundling up for the weather and walking down a street to in some small way make life better for other people in their community?
You do not have to be gay, or have a gay family member or friend to want people who happen not to identify as heterosexual to have less hardship in their lives. Any more than you need to have a personal connection to a cancer patient to want them to have an easier go of things...or to wish Syrian refugees were not washing up dead on beaches.
Right or wrong, celebrity comes with a certain magic..."ordinary" folks look up to professional athletes and sometimes get an incredible uplift in life by just getting a tweet from one...never mind a meeting in person or a visit to a dressing room or one of the team acknowledging that something important in their lives is worth being acknowledged or, Heaven forbid, (aware of my use of that phrase) even celebrated.
The Flames are using the magic of celebrity to make some people's lives better. I am a lawyer who has defended some pretty difficult and sometimes unpopular cases. I make a living out of passionately arguing for things I don't necessarily personally support...and I cannot come up with a single legitimate argument against using celebrity to do good in the community.
And looking at the pictures of Dominic underneath the rainbow-backed "Flaming C" goes a long way to demonstrate just how utterly irrelevant a person's sexual preferences are to any objective analysis of their worth as a person (I am also aware no one is overtly arguing against the value of the people in the Pride movement...but then I cannot understand really what the basis is to in any way care the Flames are supporting it).
The debate here can and likely should continue...I think my view is right and others are wrong, but in just the same way I argue above, who cares to call someone a homophobe or shout down their views of the world if they wish their sports team would not involve itself in politically or socially controversial issues?
Sometimes trying over and over to justify the unjustifiable is exactly the catalyst necessary for someone to re-think and then actually change his or her position. Welcome the opportunity to engage someone who completely disagrees with you...don't force them to hold their beliefs even more strongly but in private. Positive change will never happen that way.
