AM co-host Ryan Bridge has a surprising take on the Manly Sea Eagles players who are boycotting their upcoming NRL match due to the club's decision to wear a pride jersey.
Seven players - including Kiwis Josh Alioai, Christian Tuipulotu and Toafofoa Sipley - have chosen to withdraw from Thursday's game against Sydney Roosters, reportedly objecting to wearing the one-off LGBTQIA kit on cultural and religious grounds.
While the players' stance has been widely condemned, Bridge - who was publically outed as gay while live on-air in 2019 - suggested imposing a set of beliefs on others would simply undermine the intention of the jersey.
"If they don't want to wear the jersey then what's the big issue?" said Bridge. "Why would we force them to wear it?
"If forcing someone to wear a jersey which they don't believe represents them, or is conflicting with their religious views or cultural beliefs, then what do we gain from forcing them to wear that rugby jersey?"
Bridge said the public needed to be more accepting of others' perspectives on certain issues and those in minority groups need to accept the harsh reality that there are many who are fundamentally opposed to their lifestyle.
"Homophobia is never on - it's disgusting - but where is this going to end?" he added.
"I understand there are young people out there who are vulnerable, who are questioning their sexuality, who are unsure, and to know that some people out there don't like your lifestyle is not a nice feeling.
"However - and this is my view - those people will always exist in life. You will never have a society which thinks exactly the same way all of the time… you need to basically adapt to that and accept that reality.
"Forcing these guys to wear a rugby jersey - what is that achieving?"
Co-host Mel Chan-Green questioned whether the players' refusal to wear the jersey on religious grounds - which sports rainbow stripes in place of the Sea Eagle's traditional white hoops - was a way of masking a more sinister belief.
She pointed to the potential contradiction in the players' acceptance of having a gambling company emblazoned on the front of their jerseys with primary sponsor PointsBet as well as the damaging effect their opinions could have given their high profile.
"I wonder - and I can't say it's definitely the case here - whether religion is being used to basically mask homophobia, and that's not on," said Chan-Green.
"There will always be people have those attitudes but these are people who are role models who are taking a very public stance on that and will influence people and the way they think.
"But these players don't have a problem wearing a sponsor on their jersey that's a gambling company or playing at a home ground sponsored by an alcohol company. Where are their religious beliefs when it comes to that?
"I'm not knocking people for having religious beliefs but don't use it to hide something else."
Manly club great Ian Roberts - who in 1995 became the first openly gay NRL player - said the players' refusal to wear the jersey "breaks my heart", while broadcaster Paul Kent laid the blame on the club for trying to inflict its own beliefs on its players and not consulting them before they were made public.
"It does seem like bad management that this should have been raised with the players before it got put out in the open so you avoid this," agreed Chan-Green.
"But if don't have these discussions and say 'yes, you don't have to wear those jerseys' then it emboldens those people in their view, which is that being gay is not natural and I don't think that is the message we should be allowing to sift through".
