Rugby

Johnny Watterson: Courageous first steps from Nick McCarthy in a world not changing fast enough

Coming out as a gay professional rugby player has shone a light on other things around us

Nick McCarthy's recent announcement on his sexuality has prompted questions on why society still makes such a decision a difficult one. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho

Johnny Watterson's face
Johnny Watterson
Fri Jun 24 2022 - 05:00

The reaction to Leinster scrumhalf Nick McCarthy’s coming out appeared to reveal a brighter side to the human condition. However, in declaring himself to be gay and admitting some degree of fear of the consequences, it suggests sport and society are not there yet, wherever ‘there’ might be.

Why anyone’s sexuality should be open to judgement is the other side to the human condition, although a professional rugby player coming out in the cold house of sport throws light into other places. Many are less inclusive, more viscerally hostile in their views than metropolitan Dublin.

That is a service McCarthy provided, an impetus to look up and see what his decision actually means away from, as Johnny Sexton put it, his ‘brothers’ in Leinster.

“We talk about looking after our brothers a lot in here and the last few months has been about that, looking out for Nick,” said the Irish captain.

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[ Johnny Sexton proud of his Leinster brother Nick McCarthy after publicly coming out as gay ]

But right now in the USA, public school teachers in Florida are banned from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation. It follows Republican and potential future presidential candidate Gov Ron DeSantis, signing the “Parental Rights in Education” bill. Commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, it was signed by DeSantis in March.

It reads: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age-appropriate . . .”

Supporters say it is to allow parents determine when and in what way to introduce LGBT+ topics to their children. It also gives parents an option to sue a school district if the policy is violated. So vague, how it is violated nobody knows.

During a press conference ahead of signing the law, DeSantis said teaching kindergarten-aged kids that “they can be whatever they want to be” was “inappropriate” for children. He and his zealots have condemned efforts to educate students about LGBT+ matters as part of “woke gender ideology.”

In Europe there is a league of countries arranged from worst to best in which to be LGBT+. It runs Azerbaijan, Turkey, Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Monaco, San Marino with Azerbaijan given a 2.4 out of 100 and Poland 13.1.

Supporters celebrate after Ireland voted to legalise same sex marriage in 2015. Photograph: Aidan Crawley/EPA

In Ireland same sex marriage became legal in 2015. In Northern Ireland, it came four years later in 2019 and in Switzerland it will become legal on July 1st. The first European country to permit same sex marriage was Netherlands in 2001. But there is no same sex marriage permitted in 22 European countries including Ukraine, Turkey, Latvia, Hungary, Russia, Georgia and Vatican City.

At the moment in the UK, people are being asked to take a mendacious right-wing government at its word as it plans to rip up the current Human Rights Act and replace it with a Bill of Rights. The new bill, which has triggered grave concern in many quarters, was introduced this week and will be effective in Northern Ireland if it becomes law. It is expected to water down human rights.

According to an article in the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland, if passed, the proposals would be deeply regressive, undermine 20 years of human rights law and policy development, making it harder for people to enforce their rights and putting Boris and his ERG frat house in breach of its international law obligations.

In NI, the second biggest party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have a history of homophobia. A Guardian article last year outlined how the DUP’s old guard sensed Arlene Foster softened the DUP’s stance on gay rights and was a factor behind her failure to retain support from the party leading to her standing down.

The DUP has always been seen as the most vehemently anti-gay political party in Ireland. The late Ian Paisley was behind the Save Ulster From Sodomy campaign in the early 1980s at a time when homosexuality was being decriminalised. The DUP has voted against, or vetoed, almost every pro- LGBT+ issue in the NI assembly, at Westminster or at local government level.

Foster abstained on a vote to ban Conversion Therapy, the snake oil psychobabble that is both dangerous and discredited. Over the years a rump of far-right DUP members have expressed crass homophobic sentiments, including branding sexual minorities as ‘abominable, filthy, disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, shamefully wicked’ and ‘an abomination.’

Being gay in sport in 2022 is not straightforward. In May, Blackpool forward Jake Daniels became the UK’s first male professional footballer to come out publicly as gay since Justin Fashanu did 32 years ago. Fashanu killed himself in London in May 1998.

[ ‘I’m so much happier than I was’ - Leinster’s Nick McCarthy speaks publicly about his sexuality ]

“It’s not common for a male athlete to come out in sport, never mind professional rugby, and it’s probably something that I didn’t want to believe or accept myself either. I needed to accept being gay myself before I could address it with others,” said McCarthy this week.

He has arrived at and traversed a chasm in his life. He has said the overall experience has been positive and cathartic. But this is not the end of demands on courage from the young man.

Leinster brotherhood is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

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