Friday, June 06, 2008
Singled out at Safeco
Discrimination reared its ugly head at Seattle's Safeco Field late last month during a Seattle Mariners baseball game. Apparently it is okay for some couples to innocuously kiss at Safeco Field, but not all.
The story as the Clarion has read it, in brief, is this. Safeco Field like many Major League baseball stadiums has on occasion a "Kissing Cam." This is a brief between innings bit where the camera operators try to catch couples kissing and show them on the big scoreboard screen. All in good fun, right? At Safeco Field, allegedly only if your straight, this is according to a discrimination complaint filed by two young women who recently attended a Mariners game with some friends. The ladies, one Sirbrina Guerrero, and her partner, who has requested anonymity, were attending the game with several friends.
It is an ugly story that raises profound questions about America, and in seemingly liberal, gay friendly Seattle. Why is a kiss between a man and a woman consider "family friendly" and a kiss between two women considered inherently lewd? How wide are the knock-on effects of attacking gay marriage? Whose family values? Whose family is valued?
Guerrero, and her friends were approached by an usher who according to accounts in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said,
"A woman complained that she and her child saw you two. There's children in the crowd. It's not fair for parents to have to explain to their kids why two women are kissing."
The four women have also filed a complaint with the Seattle Mariners. Guerrero and her friends see a straight forward matter of discrimination, quoting from ABC news reports,
"When asked whether she believes Safeco officials singled her and her partner out solely because they were a same-sex couple, Guerrero said, "Absolutely. Otherwise I wouldn't be so upset about it."
"We were acting the same as any other dates that were out there, except we were a lesbian couple," she said. "When you bring a date to a game, you kiss once in a while. But it's not like we were making out. We were just kissing as regular couples do. I would never make out with anyone at a baseball game.
When pressed Mariners representatives were skating very carefully, speaking to ABC news their Director of Public Information said,
"We're trying to figure out the actual behavior that happened; it has nothing to do with the individual. We're taking the claim very seriously, but we're trying to talk to everybody and ascertain exactly what happened, and then we will be able to make a decision on how to proceed."
Fortunately these were some tech savvy, modern young women. They used their phones to take digital photos of other couples in their section kissing in a similar manner. They weren't told to stop. They weren't threatened with ejection. They were heterosexual.
Watch a interview with two of these women here.
While the young women were not ejected from the game, they spent a large portion of their evening at guest services filling out a formal complaint, rather than watching baseball.
The story as the Clarion has read it, in brief, is this. Safeco Field like many Major League baseball stadiums has on occasion a "Kissing Cam." This is a brief between innings bit where the camera operators try to catch couples kissing and show them on the big scoreboard screen. All in good fun, right? At Safeco Field, allegedly only if your straight, this is according to a discrimination complaint filed by two young women who recently attended a Mariners game with some friends. The ladies, one Sirbrina Guerrero, and her partner, who has requested anonymity, were attending the game with several friends.
It is an ugly story that raises profound questions about America, and in seemingly liberal, gay friendly Seattle. Why is a kiss between a man and a woman consider "family friendly" and a kiss between two women considered inherently lewd? How wide are the knock-on effects of attacking gay marriage? Whose family values? Whose family is valued?
Guerrero, and her friends were approached by an usher who according to accounts in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said,
"A woman complained that she and her child saw you two. There's children in the crowd. It's not fair for parents to have to explain to their kids why two women are kissing."
The four women have also filed a complaint with the Seattle Mariners. Guerrero and her friends see a straight forward matter of discrimination, quoting from ABC news reports,
"When asked whether she believes Safeco officials singled her and her partner out solely because they were a same-sex couple, Guerrero said, "Absolutely. Otherwise I wouldn't be so upset about it."
"We were acting the same as any other dates that were out there, except we were a lesbian couple," she said. "When you bring a date to a game, you kiss once in a while. But it's not like we were making out. We were just kissing as regular couples do. I would never make out with anyone at a baseball game.
When pressed Mariners representatives were skating very carefully, speaking to ABC news their Director of Public Information said,
"We're trying to figure out the actual behavior that happened; it has nothing to do with the individual. We're taking the claim very seriously, but we're trying to talk to everybody and ascertain exactly what happened, and then we will be able to make a decision on how to proceed."
Fortunately these were some tech savvy, modern young women. They used their phones to take digital photos of other couples in their section kissing in a similar manner. They weren't told to stop. They weren't threatened with ejection. They were heterosexual.
Watch a interview with two of these women here.
While the young women were not ejected from the game, they spent a large portion of their evening at guest services filling out a formal complaint, rather than watching baseball.
Labels: baseball, discrimination, Pop Culture
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