When I didn’t think the past 24 hours could get any better…
After winning marriage equality in three states last night and stopping an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment in a fourth state, a little bit of light also comes out of New York City.
Earlier this week, we reported on an ad campaign being run by Madison Square Garden Networks. The ads were intended to get people to not do one thing on Friday night, and instead stay home and watch a New York Knicks game on TV.
The ad, found on a phone booth and posted on facebook by Richard Roland stated:
“It’s Friday night. You can either see a Broadway harness malfunction or you can watch real men fly.”
The words were referencing the multi-million dollar musical, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark,” in which actors have been injured, including Christopher Tierney, who fell 30 feet from the air into the orchestra pit in December 2010. Tierney , who sustained four broken ribs and fractured three of his vertebrae, returned to the show four months later.
Others including myself, found the ad to be very thinly-veiled homophobia. Anytime the term “real men” is used in comparison to someone else, it has historically been a way to feminize someone or in essence, call them a “sissy,” or a “fag.”
This afternoon, we heard from ESPN.com reporter Darren Rovell that the ads have been pulled. According to his article,
“Earlier this week, the New York Post reported that the network, which is under the same business umbrella that includes the Knicks, would pull a particular ad after a representative admitted it was “bad judgment” and apologized to anyone who was offended.”
Well done, everyone who contacted MSG and shared the story with your friends. Little victories like this do make a difference!
Talk About Equality 
Very bad judgement. Glad they took it down.
I honestly didn’t find it that offensive at all. It’s not as if they said you had a choice of watching men in tights prancing around in make-up. They compared their men with “Tierney , who sustained four broken ribs and fractured three of his vertebrae, returned to the show four months later.” That’s hardly the description of a sissy or fag! Maybe I just have a thick skin – I thought it was kinda funny.