NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during Super Bowl XLIII in 2009 (Photo: Staff Sgt. Bradley Lail, USAF, via Wikimedia Commons).
Despite pressure from LGBT activists following the overwhelming defeat of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) on Tuesday, the National Football League is not budging on its decision to hold the 51st Super Bowl in Houston in 2017.
“This will not affect our plans for Super Bowl LI in 2017,” Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman, told NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk. “We will work closely with the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee to make sure all fans feel welcomed at our events. Our policies emphasize tolerance and inclusiveness, and prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other improper standard.”
HERO, which would have prohibited discrimination against a number of protected classes, including LGBT people, was passed in May 2014 by the Houston City Council. Opponents tried to petition it to the ballot, but failed to garner enough valid signatures. The Texas Supreme Court later interceded and forced the ordinance to be placed on the ballot. HERO was eventually defeated, garnering only 39 percent of the vote to opponents’ 61 percent.
Supporters of the LGBT community launched a petition at Change.org soon after the election results came in, arguing that the NFL should move the Super Bowl from Houston. As of mid-day Thursday, the petition had received 2,287 signatures.
Some had speculated that the NFL might be pressured to change the venue for the Super Bowl due to the influence of the LGBT community, in the same way that it seriously considered moving the 2015 Super Bowl from Arizona after lawmakers attempted to pass a law that would allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. That measure was eventually killed with a veto from then-Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican.
But while the NFL is refusing to budge on the 2017 Super Bowl, supporters of equality can take a small measure of solace that there might be at least some form of karmic justice. On Wednesday, Houston lost three separate bids to host the College Football Championship game for 2018, 2019 and 2020. As LGBT sports website OutSports notes, the three cities that Houston lost two — Atlanta, San Francisco, and New Orleans — all have nondiscrimination protections for LGBT individuals enacted into law.
"I'm mainly exhausted at this point," Bosco says of the political attacks that have been lobbed against members of the transgender community. "It's just never-ending. It's just this deluge of hate that keeps on happening.
"But the thing with a lot of right-wing talking points is they pick a boogeyman or some sort of scapegoat and they change it about every ten years," the trans drag performer adds. "It's been trans people for a while, it's been Mexican people, it's been Black people, it's been any sort of 'other' that they can then manipulate people into being afraid of, and then they can blame all of the problems in the country on that one group of people. And right now trans people are taking the brunt of it."
The York Revolution forfeited its scheduled Pride Night game on June 18 after a majority of players refused to wear Pride-themed uniforms.
The minor league baseball team had been scheduled to host the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs as part of its 11th annual Pride Night celebration, during which players were expected to wear jerseys with rainbow sleeves.
But York Revolution President and General Manager Ben Shipley told NBC News that fewer than nine players on the 28-man roster -- the minimum needed to field a team -- were willing to wear the rainbow uniforms. The refusal led to a team meeting, during which Shipley was unable to persuade the objecting players to wear the rainbow-adorned jerseys.
David Archuleta and Monroe Alise have been announced as the grand marshals of the 2026 Capital Pride Parade on Saturday, June 20.
The annual parade, which draws thousands of revelers, will step off at 3 p.m. from the intersection of 14th and T Streets NW. Floats, vehicles, and marchers will proceed down 14th Street before ending near Pennsylvania Avenue NW around 7 p.m.
Archuleta, who performed at WorldPride last year, first rose to fame as the runner-up on the seventh season of American Idol. He went on to launch a two-decade music career and release eight studio albums.
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