On Wednesday, the New York Times ran a profile on New Orleans Saints linebacker Scott Fujita. the article focused largely on Fujita's outspokenness about reproductive and gay rights.
Recently, abortion has become a hot topic in buzz around the Superbowl due to the ad that will run on Sunday featring, NFL draft pick and quarterback Tim Tebow (and his mother), that is anticipated to promote either an anti-choice or anti-abortion agenda, depending on who you talk to.
There's another ad at issue, this one for a gay dating service. CBS rejected it, and it will not air.
Fujita supported the National Equality March for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights in Washington DC last October. He made the following statement last year in an interview on an XM radio sports show:
"By in large in this country the issue of gay rights and equality should be past the point of debate. Really, there should be no debate anymore. For me, in my small platform as a professional football player, I understand that my time in the spotlight is probably limited. The more times you have to lend your name to a cause you believe in, you should do that."
He went on to imply that he is passionate about the issue of gay rights largely because of adoption. Fujita himself is adopted, and recognizes the enormous number of gay couples who would willingly adopt the millions of "unwanted" children in this and other countries.
But that Fujita is an adopted child does not cause him to support that option over abortion in all cases of unwanted pregnancy.
“I’m just so thankful she had the courage and the support system to be able to carry out the pregnancy,” Fujita said. “I wouldn’t expect that of everybody.”
The linebacker is humble about having priciples, and is proud of his Berkeley-infused ideals:
“It’s just me standing up for equal rights,” Fujita said. “It’s not that courageous to have an opinion if you think it’s the right thing and you believe it wholeheartedly.” … “People ask me a question, I’ll give them my opinion."
Jezebel.com assembled this list of reasons to "adore" Fujita:
1) He diplomatically but firmly opposed the message of the Tebow ad, which will air during the Super Bowl Fujita is playing in Sunday. "The idea of focusing on the family – who wouldn't agree with that?" he told The New York Times. "But the means of doing so, he and I might not see eye to eye all the way." Fujita was adopted, and his biological mother was a teenager when he was born. "I'm just so thankful she had the courage and the support system to be able to carry out the pregnancy," Fujita said. "I wouldn't expect that of everybody."
2) He lent his name to the National Equality March and has been outspoken about gay rights issues.
3) He supports an orphanage in New Orleans and started speaking out on gay rights in part because of his objection to laws limiting gay adoption. "What [such laws] are really saying is that the concern with one's sexual orientation or one's sexual preference outweighs what's really important, and that's finding safe homes for children," he has said. "It's also saying that we'd rather have kids bounce around from foster home to foster home throughout the course of their childhood, than end up in a permanent home."
4) He's active on behalf breast cancer awareness (his mother is a two-time survivor), filming PSAs for Susan G. Komen New Orleans Race for the Cure and wearing a pink hat during interviews.
5) He's not afraid to speak up for his beliefs in a respectful, reasoned way. "People tell me, hey, that's pretty courageous. You come out in favor of gay rights. I don't think it's that courageous," he told The Times. "I think I have an opinion, that I wish was shared by everybody, but I honestly believe that it's shared by more [football players] than we know because a lot of people just won't speak out about it."
6) His teammates say his outspokenness has fueled debates in less-likely quarters. Says linebacker Scott Shanle,"We all like when he brings out his opinions. Debates get started."
7) He left the Dallas Cowboys for the post-Katrina New Orleans Saints because, according to The Boston Globe, "he told himself, 'This could be bigger than football.''"
8) He often talks of drawing inspiration from the example set by his strong-willed Japanese-American grandmother, who was interned during World War II.
9) He has a political science degree from Berkeley and a master's in education. He has said he wants to be a public school teacher after retiring from football.
In a sport and league that wears it's frat-ish, macho, beer-swilling, truck-driving Amuricanness on its sleeve (I'm gonna hear about that…), I'm glad at least one player stands out from the pack, publicly (Howie Long and his man-truck commercials would never). And for CBS to reject an ad for a gay dating service during a sport featuring men in tights with packages prominently displayed while crashing into and piling on top of one another and occasionally cupping eachothers' butts is just weird. Football is pretty gay. Get over it.
