Pride and Prejudice

The Manly Sea Eagles plan to wear gay pride jerseys in their Thursday night clash with the Sydney Roosters – but they may be without seven star players who refuse to wear rainbow colours.

Manly's Sean Keppie, Kieran Foran and Reuben Garrick are proud of their pride costume

The Daily Telegraph reports:

The seven players are understood to be Josh Aloiai, Jason Saab, Josh Schuster, Haumole Olakau’atu, Tolutau Koula, Christian Tuipulotu and Toafofoa Sipley. All are deeply religious …

The players flatly rejected the club’s wishes to wear the jersey. They had hoped they could wear Manly’s traditional jersey but the NRL will not allow players to take the field in an alternative strip.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter FitzSimons suggests the seven Christians should be sacked:

The short answer for all seven should be: "No probs, and good luck with your new club!" https://t.co/cpSKIkoq2X

— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) July 25, 2022

FitzSimons also highlighted a post from a diversity and inclusion advocate smearing the players as “the dirty seven”:

No. https://t.co/kEnc3qcPdJ

— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) July 25, 2022

“Dirty” isn’t really a word you want to use when discussing people of colour.

As it happens, FitzSimons – who once called a black security guard a gorilla – previously wrote about an athlete who for religious reasons also declined to wear the pride kit and didn't play. GWS Giants player Haneen Zreika, a Muslim, made that decision back in January.

Did FitzSimons call for her to be sacked? Did he amplify any slurs of her as “dirty”? Of course he didn’t:

Haneen Zreika has agreed with her club she can sit out the Pride round in the AFLW because her embrace of the Islamic faith means she’s uncomfortable being seen by her community as endorsing homosexuality.

Ms Zreika … is quietly saying that, purely personally, she is not comfortable wearing the Pride jersey because she believes it contravenes her religion …

The key is not to use your platform to prosleytise …

Peter can’t spell.

… like Folau did and rub other people’s noses in the most offensive and damaging of those beliefs.

Ms Zreika is doing no such thing: she’s quietly declining to use her platform to promote a belief she’s not comfortable with.

It’s exactly the same deal with Manly’s Christians – but, in their case, FitzSimons thinks contracts should be terminated.

Celebrate diversity, you absolute anti-Christian hypocrite.

UPDATE. The Daily Telegraph’s Paul Crawley:

I spoke with a rival club chief executive who agreed that if his club had gone about this the same way Manly did he would have had several players who would have made the same decision to stand down.

And if you took that question to every NRL club boss it would probably be a similar outcome, depending on the make-up of their squad when it comes to cultural and religious backgrounds.

With close to 50 per cent of the NRL population being of Pacific Island heritage, this goes beyond seven Sea Eagles …

And as for the game’s stance, it is not right that these players are forced to wear this jumper or not play.

That is not inclusiveness, it is exclusion.

They are football players, not politicians.

Just let them play.

Yes.

UPDATE II. FitzSimons digs in. According to Peter, some things are more important than your faith, culture and core beliefs. Such as, for example, winning a rugby league game:

They effectively trash the season, ruin the chances of making the eight, embarrass the game, the club and themselves. It is, simply put, not the stuff that premiership players are made of, and if I was Manly I would move them on as quickly as possible, and wish them well at their new club.

If FitzSimons was manly he wouldn’t have spent years with that handkerchief on his head. Next, the raging hypocrite attempts to justify his evident double standards:

And so to the space cadets, who say the whole thing is the moral equivalent of the young Islamic woman who quietly declined to wear the GWS Pride jersey earlier this year.

“Moral equivalent.” Keep that phrase in mind.

As I wrote at the time: “It’s regrettable, disappointing and surprising – given that she is already progressive enough to break down the barriers to be the first Islamic woman to play in the AFLW – and to have played in the Pride round last year, albeit without personally wearing the jersey. But it ain’t remotely Folau in terms of impact, and not a thousandth of it in terms of newsworthiness.”

Ditto this.

Her declining to do so, as a sole operator, as a young woman living at home with devout parents and playing AFLW as an aside to her studies really is regrettable but 1/100 on the scale of impact and newsworthiness.

These blokes, seasoned professionals earning millions between them, and destroying the Manly season because of it, is a tad more impactful and newsworthy, yes?

This isn’t about how much people earn, where they live or how newsworthy they might be. If we’re talking “moral equivalence”, it’s about this:

Haneen Zreika disagreed with the pride jersey and refused to play. FitzSimons gave her a pass.

The Manly dissidents disagree with the pride jersey and refuse to play. FitzSimons wants them fired.

UPDATE III. Now Manly’s replacements are refusing to play:

Potential debutants have rejected the opportunity to play their first NRL game, joining their teammates boycotting Thursday’s match …

The Daily Telegraph has learnt the Sea Eagles are scrambling to field a team before the 4pm deadline after a handful of would-be first timers knocked back a chance to play the game.

It is understood they did so on similar grounds to that of the seven Manly players who have also stood down.

UPDATE IV. Further player admonitions from theological scholar FitzSimons:

Your jerseys, and the stadium you play in, are awash in alcohol and gambling advertisements – much of which pays for your salaries. On this, not a peep out of you, even though most with strong religious views take a dim view of both drinking and gambling.

There are no Biblical injunctions against drinking or gambling. FitzSimons is confusing Christianity with Islam.

Or maybe non-drinking, anti-gambling Fitz believes anything he doesn’t like must be a sin by definition.

UPDATE V. FitzSimons notes with approval that Haneen Zreika “quietly declined” to wear pride colours, but calls on the Manly players to explain themselves:

Griff, we are all ears. And eyes. It would be great to hear there side. But have you seen a single quote from any of them? If they are going to do this, let;s hear their case! https://t.co/Hun69raZkZ

— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) July 26, 2022

UPDATE VI. Manly didn’t tell any players that they’d be expected to wear pride colours, but actors Hugh Jackman and Chris Hemsworth knew about it weeks ago.