Nigerian footballer heats up U.S. polity with gay-marriage comment

Oladele Brendon Ayanbadejo

AN athlete of Nigerian and American origin is at the centre of a gay-marriage debte that is currently landmarking the United States of America's politics ahead the country's November presidential poll. 

Oladele Brendon Ayanbadejo an American football linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League publicly endorsed same-sex marriage, courting the ire of several elite politicians of the United States as well as fans and owners of his club. The 36-year-old Chicago-born footballer stepped into the controversial political issue through articles he wrote in newspaper op-eds and his appearances in TV ads supporting gay marriage.

His bold statement on the very controversial topic has raised so much dust that even a respected Maryland legislator, Emmett C. Burns Jr. has publicly condemned the footballer in an equally, very controversial language. Burns, suggesting it is high time the connection between professional sports and gay marriage, equally wondered why Ayanbadejo's club should still have him in it's payroll given his audacity on the irksome same-sex issue. And with the lawmaker's open call for a battle with the athlete, the matter had blossomed into a national issue, parting American sports celebrities and politicians in two distinct camps on the issue.

The diatribe began small before it got big, starting with the Maryland legislator's letter to Baltimore Ravens owner, Steve Bisciotti about a fortnight ago.

Burns wrote: "As a Delegate to the Maryland General Assembly and a Baltimore Ravens Football fan, I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, would publicly endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically, as a Raven Football player."

The Democratic party chieftain and a Baptist pastor proceeded to argue that it was not Ayanbadejo's place as a linebacker to step into a controversial political issue.

"I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football Franchise Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employee and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions,"

He added: "I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing."
The exchange has gone massively viral. But Baltimore owner Bisciotti and NFL Players Association's President Domonique Foxworth, emphasised Ayanbadejo's right to speak his mind. Very vocal among his supporters in the NFL is Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe who joined in the debate with a sharp-worded op-ed in support of Ayanbadejo and against Burns.

Writing the legislator, Kluwe stated thus: "As I suspect you have not read the (U.S.)
Constitution, I would like to remind you that the very first, the VERY FIRST Amendment in this founding document deals with the freedom of speech, particularly the abridgment of said freedom.

"By using your position as an elected official (when referring to your constituents so as to implicitly threaten the Ravens organization) to state that the Ravens should 'inhibit such expressions from your employees,' more specifically Brendon Ayanbadejo, not only are you clearly violating the First Amendment, you also come across as a (slang term for a bodily byproduct not repeatable in print)."

Much of the rest of Kluwe's letter is unprintable. He also countered the lawmaker's notion that Ayanbadejo did what no footballer had done.

"P.S. I've also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your 'I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing' and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it," Kluwe wrote.

But Burns did not stop his excoriation of Ayanbadejo though last Sunday, he dropped hint of coming to terms with the fact that the footballer has a right to his freedom of speech. 

He told the Baltimore Sun: "Upon reflection, he (Ayanbadejo) has his First Amendment rights. And I have my First Amendment rights. ... Each of us has the right to speak our opinions. The football player and I have a right to speak our minds."

On Monday night, Ayanbadejo and Kluwe were interviewed on the gay marriage issue by veteran broadcast anchorman and activist, Rev. Al Sharpton on his programme, 'Politics Nation' on the U.S. television channel, MSNBC. And the duo repeated their keen stand on the rights of gays to marry freely.

The issue comes up curiously, on the heels of a similar debate over same-sex marriage which got the presidential candidates of the U.S.A's two major parties, the Democrats (President Barack Obama) and the Republican Party (Gov. Mitt Romney) on opposing sides.

The matter has grown so contentious that some experts the serendipituous play to the Democrats' game by the Ayanbadejo camp.

But the issue is not out of sync with the known social traits of the footballer who beyond the large following in social media as well as gay and lesbian rights capaign communities which the avocation got him is well known for his audacious activism.

Ayanbadejo who was signed by the Atlanta Falcons as an undrafted free agent in 1999, played college football for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he played in the first-team all-Pac-10 in his senior season with four sacks against arch-rival USC's Carson Palmer. He studied for a degree in history.

The 1.85 m tall, intellectually inclined athlete wrote for the Santa Cruz Sentinel during his early years in the NFL. He played for Miami Dolphins in 2003, and had earlier played for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League and, in 2002, for the BC Lions, also of the Canadian Football League.

In U.S. Ayanbadejo, a father of two, is also known for his advocacy for the passage of the FIT Kids Act, federal legislation that would require school districts to report on students' physical activity and to give youngsters health and nutritional information.

But in an article published in Los Angeles Times, Matt Pearce, noted: "Observers will undoubtedly disagree over whether a profanity-laced jeremiad is the right way to speak up for a cause. But one of the most notable elements of this scrum has been players' willingness to publicly stick their necks out for LGBT rights; professional sports culture has long been dominated by its own silence on homosexuality, when not breaking it with outright homophobia.

"Yet as public support for gay marriage has slowly but surely found its way into the political mainstream, recent years have seen walls crumble in some of America's most sexually conservative institutions. NFL players winning a public battle with a politician over gay marriage comes not long after Barack Obama became the first president to openly endorse gay marriage, perhaps reading the tea leaves that said it had become politically advantageous for him to do so."

But since 2009, Ayanbedejo has advocated for legalising same-sex marriage. His advocacy rather suddenly became a cause celebre earlier this month, after the Maryland State Delegate Mr. Burns, Jr. wrote the August 29, letter to Baltimore Ravens owner Bisciotti, on official Maryland State letterhead.

Hence the notion in some other quarters that the Ayanbadejo issue, though rhyming with the Obama lines, may not be a planned stunt but a fortuituos coincidence.

According to The Washington Post, Ayanbedejo has publicly announced that he had no intention of remaining silent on an issue of conscience and public importance. Ayanbadejo has since said that he has received widespread support in the world of football.