Most of the time,
a kiss is just a kiss in the stands at Seattle Mariners
games. The crowd hardly even pays attention when fans
smooch.
But then last
week, a lesbian complained that an usher at Safeco Field
asked her to stop kissing her date because it was making
another fan uncomfortable.
The incident has
exploded on local TV, on talk radio, and in the
blogosphere, touching off a debate over public displays of
affection in generally gay-friendly Seattle.
''Certain
individuals have not yet caught up. Those people see a gay
or lesbian couple and they stare or say something,''
said Josh Friedes of Equal Rights Washington. ''This
is one of the challenges of being gay. Everyday things
can become sources of trauma.''
As the Mariners
played the Boston Red Sox on May 26, Sirbrina Guerrero
and her date were approached in the third inning by an usher
who told them their kissing was inappropriate,
Guerrero said.
The usher,
Guerrero said, told them he had received a complaint from a
woman nearby who said that there were kids in the crowd of
nearly 36,000 and that parents would have to explain
why two women were kissing.
''I was really
just shocked,'' Guerrero said. ''Seattle is so
gay-friendly. There was a couple like seven rows ahead
making out. We were just showing affection.''
On Monday,
Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale said that the usher was
responding to a complaint of two women ''making out'' and
''groping'' in the stands. On Thursday an e-mail
written by Hale, obtained by the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, said that the Mariners had
concluded that its staff acted appropriately in reprimanding
the couple.
Hale wrote in the
e-mail that the Mariners' investigation found that
"the women refused to modify their behavior, began swearing
at the seating hosts, and complained that they were
being singled out for their sexual orientation.
Several staff members informed the women that it was
their behavior -- not their identity -- that was the issue."
''We have a
strict nondiscrimination policy at the Seattle Mariners and
at Safeco Field, and when we do enforce the code of conduct
it is based on behavior, not on the identity of those
involved,'' Hale said Monday.
The code of
conduct -- announced before each game -- specifically
mentions public displays of affection that are ''not
appropriate in a public, family setting.'' Hale said
those standards are based on what a ''reasonable
person'' would find inappropriate.
Guerrero denied
she and her date were groping each other, saying that
along with eating garlic fries, they were giving each other
brief kisses.
On Tuesday,
Guerrero said a Mariners director of guest services had
apologized to her. The team spokeswoman could not
immediately confirm that.
After the story
broke, the Mariners were blasted by out sex-advice
columnist Dan Savage, who wrote about the incident on the
blog of The Stranger, an alternative weekly paper.
''I constantly
see people making out,'' Savage said. ''My son has noticed
and asked, 'Do they show the ballgame on women's foreheads?'
''
Savage called for
a ''kiss-in'' to protest against the Mariners.
Web sites have
been swamped with blog postings for and against Guerrero
and her date. And the story has people talking in Seattle.
''I would be
uncomfortable'' seeing public displays of affection between
lesbians or gay men, said Jim Ridneour, a 54-year-old taxi
driver. ''I don't think it's right seeing women
kissing in public. If I had my family there, I'd have
to explain what's going on.''
''It all depends
on the degree,'' Mark Ackerman said as he waited for a
hot dog outside Safeco Field before Wednesday's game. ''Even
for heterosexual couples.''
Since the
incident, Guerrero's job and her past have come under
scrutiny. She works at a bar known for scantily clad
women and was a contestant on the MTV reality show
A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, in which
women and men compete for the affection of a bisexual
Internet celebrity.
''People are
saying it's 15 more minutes for my career,'' Guerrero said
of the ballpark furor, ''but this is not making me look very
good.''
In 2007 an Oregon
transit agency chief apologized after a lesbian
teenager was kicked off a bus when a passenger complained
about her kissing another girl.
Also in 2007, a
gay rights group protested a Kansas City, Mo., restaurant
they said ejected four women because two of them kissed, and
a Texas state trooper was placed on probation in 2004
for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state
capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas.
''There's a
double standard. That's the bottom line,'' said Pat Griffin,
director of the It Takes a Team! Education Campaign, an
initiative from the Women's Sports Foundation to
eliminate homophobia in sports. (Manuel Valdes,
AP, with additional reporting from The
Advocate)
