The*Empress

Gay ex-Giant alleges bias at Super Bowl

Elizabeth LeSure, Associated PressFri Feb 10, 7:14 PM ET

SUMMARY: Former Giants lineman Roy Simmons claims he was denied access to the Super Bowl media center because he is gay and HIV-positive.

NEW YORK -- Former Giants lineman Roy Simmons and celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred want an investigation into whether Simmons was denied access to the Super Bowl media center because he is gay and HIV-positive.

Simmons and Allred held a news conference outside NFL headquarters Thursday before delivering a letter to the league asking it to look into why Simmons wasn't granted a media pass.

Simmons requested a credential for the center Feb. 2, three days before the Super Bowl. He also asked for two tickets for the game, which the Pittsburgh Steelers won 21-10 over the Seattle Seahawks, and a party.

He said he was told there were no more credentials available. But Allred, whose clients have included

Scott Peterson's former mistress, Amber Frey, said the NFL indicated that it would give others passes after Simmons asked for one.

Simmons, who also played for the Washington Redskins, said he stood outside the media center in Detroit and watched many past and present football players go in and out.

"I was once part of the inner circle -- now I'm standing on the outside looking in," said Simmons, who also wasn't given passes to the game or the party.

In a letter addressed to NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, Allred listed questions she said the NFL should answer, including whether Simmons' request was denied because he no longer fit the image of an NFL player or whether the NFL "is inherently homophobic and prefers that a gay football player remain in the closet."

The NFL said in a statement that people throughout the league are inundated with last-minute requests for Super Bowl game tickets, party invitations and press credentials. An NFL spokesman said some requests are handled by the league and others go through the public relations staff at the media center.

"It is impossible for all of these requests to be met, and there were many people, apart from Mr. Simmons, who were disappointed," the statement said.

It said that "far from being hostile to Mr. Simmons, the last word back to him from our office was to contact us after the Super Bowl about the possibility of speaking to our rookies at their annual June symposium."

Simmons said he never asked for credentials in the past and wanted access to the media center this year to talk about the importance of HIV testing.

Simmons, who played for the Giants from 1979-81 and Redskins in 1983, disclosed that he is gay in 1992. He was the first former NFL player to come out as HIV-positive 10 years later. He now works as a supervisor at a halfway house in Long Island.

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Deafness

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A HIV-positive is dangerous. I wouldn't want to be near him if he cut something by an accident. He is stupid that he got aids from his bf's secret aids. I respect gay/lesbian people, but it is really wrong for some people who lied to their partners about their HIV-positive. It is same thing for lesbians, and even Christians, too.

The*Empress

His bf didn't tell him? Dang. That is so sad.
But Superbowl should have let him talk to give young views some infomation about his condition... Ashame people treat him like 3rd class.

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MorriganTait

AIDS is not spread by casual contact. It typically requires repeated exposure and very specific modes of transmission. It is pretty much only spread through sex, mother to fetus and sharing needles. There is no reason for anyone with HIV to be prevented from attending a public event or being in a public place. There are many deadly diseases that are easier to pass along, but we never even worry if we migh catch them if we go out in public...

The*Empress

And also blood transfusion.

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MorriganTait

This has not been the case since 1985 - that's 20 years ago.

The U.S. blood supply is among the safest in the world. Nearly all people infected with HIV through blood transfusions received those transfusions before 1985, the year HIV testing began for all donated blood.

The Public Health Service has recommended an approach to blood safety in the United States that includes stringent donor selection practices and the use of screening tests. U.S. blood donations have been screened for antibodies to HIV-1 since March 1985 and HIV-2 since June 1992. The p24 Antigen test was added in 1996. Blood and blood products that test positive for HIV are safely discarded and are not used for transfusions.

Tests Performed on Each Unit of Donated Blood* (Source: American Red Cross)

Disease, Test, Year Implemented

HIV/ AIDS
HIV/AIDS HIV- I Antibody test
1985

HIV-1/2 Antibody test
1992

HIV-I p24 Antigen test
1996

HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C
Nucleic Acid Test (NAT)
1999

Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C Anti-HCV
1990

Hepatitis B
Hepatitis B Surface Antigen test
1971

Hepatitis B Core Antibody
1987

Hepatitis
Hepatitis ALT
1986

Syphilis
Syphilis Serologic test
1948

Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus (HTLV)
HTLV-I Antibody
1989

HTLV -I/II Antibody
1998

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/faq/faq15.htm

The*Empress

Gay Ex-NFL Player Public Again
Lineman Roy Simmons Breaks His 12-Year Silence

By Jim Buzinski
Outsports.com

Roy Simmons is only one of three former NFL players to publicly disclose his homosexuality. And until Sunday he was the most invisible.

Simmons, an offensive lineman with the New York Giants and Washington Redskins from 1979-84, came out as gay on the Phil Donahue show in 1992, then promptly disappeared. No more stories would appear about Simmons for the next 12 years.

Simmons, 47, broke his silence in an interview in the New York Times (strangely, the story ran in the Style section, not Sports) and his story is a compelling tale of a star athlete who hit rock bottom and is trying to get back up.

In the Times story, we learn this about Simmons:

He is HIV-positive.

He was raped by a neighbor when he was 11.

He was in drug rehabilitation twice for drugs and alcohol and has been sober for two years.

He once came close to jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

He has been homeless for a brief time.

Writer Maureen Orth tells why Simmons has decided to become more visible:

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The*Empress

Why gay men I know are all molested?

Monday, September 19, 2005

Laveranues Coles was Sexually Abused.

New York Jets wide receiver Laveranues Coles
is a survivor of sexual abuse. In a profile in Sunday editions of The New York Times, Coles said he was
molested between the ages of 10 and 13 by a man his mother later married. The Pro Bowl wide receiver thought he was alone in his inner struggles, and too
proud to let any outsiders into his personal prison. But Coles recently decided to free himself of his secret in the hopes it might help other children who have
endured abuse.

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MorriganTait

I know many GLBT people who were not molested, but frankly, molestation and rape are so prevalent that many many people are assaulted every year. Here are some related statistics that may help show how prevalent sexual assault is:

Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.
One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, and 10% of sexual assault victims are men.
In 2003-2004, there were an average annual 204,370 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.
About 44% of rape victims are under age 18, and 80% are under age 30.
Since 1994, rape/sexual assault has fallen by over 64%.

http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html

Oceanbreeze

Exactly. When you are talking about rape or child molestation, a person's sexual preference doesn't matter. It's also a myth that a person's sexual preference is determined by sexual assault. Doesn't happen that way. You don't become gay or lesbian based on an event. You are gay or lesbian from the moment you are born into this world.

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"There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living."

The*Empress

Well I chat with 2 gay men and they were prisoners... And they said they had to give oral sex with other inmates at that time because or else they will get raped...

And they are out of reason and working as chefs at resturants,,,

And I told them they don't have to be gay anymore, they can go back being normal again and be with women and have kids.

They paused.

They still act like victims.

And the lightskinned black guy at Gallaudet, he loves to wear women clothes.... And he said in tv interview that he was sexually assaulted when he was a kid....
I wish to tell him that he doesn't have to be that way anymore.... Stop being a victim, and stop having people to hate you and your lifestyle, he can be normal now

Ellen Degeneres said she was molested by her stepfather.

It seems like for example when a woman married abusive husband, and then she divorced and married another abusive husband cause she felt she doesn't deserved to have a good husband.

I do believe gay people are gay because of one point something bad had happen to them. I just don't believe they were born that way.

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Oceanbreeze

Lots of straight people have also been abused, and they remained straight. Men who are raped in prison are usually straight. They are the one's deemed vulnerable and are targeted. I would strongly advise you to do some actual research into this, and don't just rely on hearsay. People can give opinions, but facts tell the tale.

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"There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living."

The*Empress

So you're saying like, many people and children were bullied by Bullies and they come out just fine and live normal lives,

And it is okay for other kids, who didn't handle being bullied well, to bring guns to school and start shooting at everybody.

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MorriganTait

NO - no one is saying anything of this sort. All kinds of people are molested and raped and it has nothing to do with being heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual later in life.

You have noticed many Gay men you know of were molested - this stands to reason because many people were molested as childern. It is quite common. So that it would also be common among Gay men is not a surprise. It's like saying "many Gay men have brown hair" and suggest it has anything to do with them being Gay.

You keep talking about people being "normal" - it is perfectly normal to be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered or Intersexed. These are normal variations that occur in the human species.

How would you feel if people told you to stop being a victim about your deafness? How would it feel if they told you to just stop being deaf and act normal? You would think they were crazy, wouldn't you?

Some people are made deaf by disease or injury, and some people are born deaf, and some people are hard of hearing for the same reasons. They have no more control over this than GLBT people have over their sexuality. There was a time when everyone regarded deaf as stupid, inferior, less-than, second-class, retarded, etc. Think about that for a moment when you decide to condemn another person for what they can't control.