Jamie Kuntz, a former football player at North Dakota State College of Science, was kicked off his football team after kissing his boyfriend at an away game that he was filming.
The coach insists that he was kicked off the football team for lying when his coach asked him whether he’d kissed the man in the press box at the football game and whether he was gay. However, other football players have broken more serious rules– even committed felonies– and remained on the team. Such an extreme response to such a minor violation reeks of homophobia.
Many if not most queer people’s reaction to being outed, especially if they’re semi-closeted as it appears Kuntz was, is “deny deny deny deny everything.” This is a natural reaction to the fact that coming out has resulted, for many people, in ostracism, bullying, assault, homelessness, and even murder, and that every fucking queer person is perfectly well-aware of these facts. Punishing him for lying in that circumstance, especially since he fessed up of his own free will, is fucked up, even ignoring the homophobic implications of punishing a dude for lying about kissing his partner.
I mean, would a straight student be kicked off the team for lying about bringing his girlfriend into the box and kissing her?
Possibly some of it is related to the extreme age of Kuntz’s boyfriend, who is sixty-five. (Kuntz is a legal adult who met him online and pursued him, and has always had a thing for older men, so I am not willing to necessarily consider it an abuse of power.) But seriously, being kicked off the team, losing your scholarship, and having to withdraw from college for a consensual romantic act that harmed no one and a lie that he immediately corrected? That’s ridiculous and homophobic in the extreme.
How come they are never man enough to admit it and just say that they don’t want homo stuff around them? They come up with such lame excuses. The player kissed his partner before a game, a lot of people do that and they don’t have to testify before court about it, why did the coach even have to ask him about it?