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Uptown Sports agency opposes Sean Avery’s support of marriage equality

Sean Avery

Just last week, New York Rangers agitator Sean Avery caught the hockey world by surprise by pledging his support for marriage equality in New York State including filming a 30-second commercial showing his support for the cause of same-sex marriage in the state. Avery’s history as an agitator often gets him a bad reputation on the ice, but his unwavering support of civil rights for gays and his willingness to stand beside any player willing to come out earns him high praise off of the ice.

As you might expect, taking a stance like this on such a hot-button topic often lends you to being criticized publicly. Sometimes it comes from people in the media or in the form of user comments on sites like this one. One area it doesn’t usually come from is from others that work in the same business.

This afternoon, Uptown Sports Management’s Twitter account, Uptown Hockey, sent out a tweet that knocked both the hockey world and those in support of marriage equality for a loop. That’s putting it very mildly.

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The author of that tweet was Todd Reynolds, the vice president of Uptown Sports. As you might expect, that kind of opinion out of the blue created outrage throughout the hockey and sports world on Twitter. Avery’s actions were viewed to be brave in the face of a sports world that’s still seemingly behind the times in its open acceptance of homosexuals in professional sports.

Two hours later, Reynolds tried to clarify what he was saying. His clarification wasn’t much better.

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It’s just one man’s opinion on the matter, but that opinion is one that’s falling out of favor in the modern day as acceptance and tolerance have become more the norm than the exception. Reynolds’ opinion, however, seems to be one that’s the law of the land with Uptown Sports. Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post caught up with Todd’s father Don, the president of Uptown Sports. His take is not dissimilar to that of his son’s.

“It’s sad. I mean, my personal position is that I do not support gay marriage, and I think it’s wrong, as well. It’s not politically correct to, I guess, give your opinion about a thing like that. It’s politically correct on the other side, for people to say, ‘sure, I support gay marriage.’ But the majority, I think, of Canadians would say that they don’t agree with gay marriage – that man and woman were created to be married, not man and man or man and horse, you know?”

Making matters even uglier still, Todd Reynolds appeared on TSN Radio with James Cybulski and Bruce Arthur this afternoon to present his side of the story and potentially clear the air about what he unleashed on Twitter. That too didn’t quite go as well as you might imagine.

“But I’m a little disappointment in some of the response. If you oppose a viewpoint, you’re immediately targeted by some people as a hater, a bigot, intolerant, homophobic and many other terms. That’s obviously not the case for people who know me... I don’t hate anyone, and I’m certainly not a bigot, but I believe in marriage between one man and one woman. It’s a social debate that’s raged on for quite some time. In Canada and the U.S. it’s a hot-button topic right now. I guess maybe it was how I was raised. I believe in voicing your opinion and not being part of the silent majority. “

For those curious, Uptown Hockey represents a handful of NHL players right now. Andrew Brunette, Carlo Colaiacovo, Jonathan Bernier, Kyle Clifford, and perhaps most notably right now Nashville’s Mike Fisher. A sports agent, or agents in this case, using the company name to flaunt their personal politics seems like the kind of thing that would rankle a player who may not agree with those personal politics. Bringing that sort of attention on a player seems like the sort of thing that would be a bad business decision, never mind in the view of public relations.

We’re not here to silence someone that has an opinion. Free speech is a beautiful thing to have. That said, when it’s opinion that comes across as archaic, backwards, and founded in abject ignorance to the human condition we’re allowed to sound off on it as we choose to as well.

A person’s beliefs are what they are and they’re allowed to them if they see fit, but this is an issue that comes down as one where future generations are going to look back on this generation and wonder why anyone discriminated against people in the first place. Much like the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, the issue of marriage equality and gay rights boils down to one as just basic human decency. I understand that for some their religious beliefs may get in the way of that but to those who feel and believe that way, I preach to you the matter of respect to fellow human beings.

Respect is a two-way street though and angry, hateful words going either way solves nothing. Teaching more about understanding and the common good would go a long way towards making the gap between both sides of the issue less contentious and far more understanding. Ignorance never got anyone anywhere before in their lives, and the Reynolds’ and Uptown Sports are hopefully learning that lesson in a big way.