Scott A. Wilburn
PHP/MySQL programmer in the Pacific Northwest
Seattle Sonics owners support anti-gay marriage group
Homophobia in the NBA has hit home in Seattle.
According to this article written by Seattle Times columnist David Postman, two principal owners of the NBA Sonics and the WNBA Storm were the top contributors to the conservative organization Americans United to Preserve Marriage. Because of the homophobic bigoted views of the owners, the Seattle Sonics have just lost me as a fan… so I shall look to my past in Portland and once again become a fan of the Portland Trail Blazers.
This story is bad news for the Sonics, especially at a time when they are looking to the Washington State Legislature to help them build a new arena. I doubt that most conservative legislators would support tax increases for this new arena, and with this added news, I think the Sonics would lose support from liberal legislators. On top of that, I would imagine that the Storm organization will also lose longtime support from the GLBT community.
Comments are closed.
February 28, 2007 - 8:05 pm
Good comment on Horse’s Ass.
Frankly, I don’t care who the owners of the Sonics donate money to, or whether they donate to anyone. This corporate giveaway is outrageous any way you cut it.
The new Sonics owners all seem to be Republicans and pretty conservative. I generally like Republicans. But since Republicans are decidedly in the minority in current state political affairs, maybe this ideological bias will be a not-so-good to so-so reason for defeating a horrible idea. (The good reason to defeat it is that government subsidized stadiums to benefit rich teams and players are a horrible idea.)
To keep things in perspective:
1995 — Democrat Governor Mike Lowry forced Mariners Stadium giveaway down taxpayers throats. State House was nearly 2-1 GOP and state Senate 25D-24R.
1997 — Democrat Governor Gary Locke got legislature to send Seahawks Stadium giveaway to referendum special election. State House was about 3-2 GOP and state Senate 25R-24D (or was it 26R-23D?). Paul Allen won referendum by dumping in nearly $10 million of his company’s funds to get people to narrowly approve it.
So there are idiots in both parties that support these kind of outrageous ideas. Neither stadium would have been approved if at least one of the political parties had stood up and resolutely opposed it.