Golden State Warriors NBA team host LGBT charity night

Thursday marked the first time the Golden State Warriors basketball team hosted an LGBT night - adding the gay community to its long roster of diversity-themed games that include everything from Bollywood dancing on Indian culture night to horn-blowing rabbis on Jewish heritage night.

Just before the start of Thursday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus stood at halfcourt in tuxedos and sang the national anthem.

At halftime, the world’s only gay-identified cheerleading team, Cheer SF, gave a high-octane performance, tossing male and female fliers into the air.

Although this is not the first time an NBA team has held a gay night, many gay fans said it was especially poignant that the Warriors reached out, given former player Tim Hardaway’s notorious “I hate gay people” comment in February 2007, for which he later apologized.

(Full story: San Francisco Chronicle)

German soccer boss says- “There’s no place in football for gays”

A former soccer boss today sparked fury by declaring: ‘There is no place in football for gays.’

Rudi Assauer, who formerly headed up Schalke 04 in Germany’s Bundesliga, went on to say: ‘Perhaps they are OK in other sports but not in football.’

‘If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: “You have shown courage.”  But then I would tell him to find something else to do.’

His outburst is set to enrage world footballing authorities who are making concerted efforts to rid the game of homophobia.

(Full story: Mail Online / Photo: Frankinho via tumblr)

Figure skater Johnny Weir ‘not family friendly enough for Stars on Ice’

The American figure skating champion Johnny Weir has reportedly been rejected from the Stars on Ice Tour because he is not deemed “family friendly”.

Weir, who represented the US at the 2010 Winter Olympics and is a three-time national champion, was rejected from the show by its sponsors, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) claims.

The organization said: “To say that Weir is ‘not family friendly’ would be a clear jab at his perceived sexual orientation … Weir is extremely involved with his family. He is putting his younger brother through college, and supports the family financially because his father’s disability prohibits him from working.”

(Full story: Pink News UK)

‘It’s a little bit Brokeback Mountain’: TV commentators accused over gay skating jibes

A pair of Australian TV sports commentators are in hot water after making allegedly homophobic remarks about male ice skaters at the Winter Olympics.

Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy’s comments include describing routines as ‘Brokeback Mountain’ exercises and even joked about organisers being shocked at discovering one skater was not gay.

They then added the non-gay skater was unlikely to be controversial and flamboyant U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir - because he wore a black and pink outfit while holding a heart-shaped cushion.

(Full story DailyMail.co.uk)