Lawyers for Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo have filed a brief in support of same-sex marriage in California, SF Gate reported on March 1.
Kluwe, a punter for the Minnesota Vikings and Ayanbadejo a linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, collaborated on the brief and filed it on the day of the Supreme Court’s deadline in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the law against same-sex marriage equality in California, knows as Proposition 8.
Ayanbadejo and Chris Kluwe have been the most visible NFL players to speak up on behalf of gays, particularly their right to marry.
When a Maryland state representative wrote to the Ravens owner in August telling him he should “inhibit such expressions” from Ayanbadejo, the linebacker refused to keep silent, noting that the miscegenation laws of the past would have prevented his parents’ interracial marriage. Brendon’s mother is white and his father is black.
“For far too long, professional sports have been a bastion of bigotry, intolerance and small-minded prejudice toward sexual orientation, just as they had been to racial differences decades earlier.”
In the brief, Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, who both attended UCLA, argue that prohibiting gays and lesbians from marrying their chosen partners violates not only the constitutional guarantee of equality but also concepts of fairness that are essential in athletes.
Comments