Tyson Fury and BBC Sports Personality of the Year

[Nigel Gordon]

There is a new petition on Change.org regarding the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. For those of you outside the UK this is one of the most important sporting awards in the UK. One of the shortlisted candidates is the boxer Tyson Fury, who has just won three versions of the World Heavyweight Championship. He is on the record as being very homophobic and making comments that have suggested that violence to gay men and women is permissible. The petition is to have him removed from the shortlist. If you want to sign it you can find it here:

https://www.change.org/p/the-bbc-should-remove-homophobic-tyson-fury-from-sports-personality-of-the-year-shortlist?recruiter=87163785&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

[ChrisR]

I wish you the best of luck in collecting signatories, but I won't consider signing it myself. I've seen the quotes in which the gent says some pretty stupid and outrageous things, but I've seen nothing of a call for violence to resolve issues with gays, aside from typical boxer bravado.

It seems wrong to do the exact same thing to somebody who opposes gays that they did to gays for generations. As Voltaire (or E.B. Hall) put it, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This applies to both sides of an argument.

However, in a final voting situation, I can nonetheless hope that he is slaughtered.

[ChrisR]

You may want to take notice of the fact that at least 80,000 signatories have joined your list (despite my disagreement <sigh>) so congratulations!

Not only is BBC doing some serious re-thinking on the matter, but so are other folks in the sports business world:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-35046629

[Joe]

I signed. The hell with him.