Over the weekend, ESPN aired an openly
gay professional athlete embracing and kissing his partner after a
bowling win.
Scott Norton won the 2012 PBA Chameleon
Championship in Las Vegas held in November. Norton defeated the 2011
champion, Jason Belmonte, to win the title. ESPN did not
air the event until this Sunday, gay sports blog Outsports.com
reported.
After wining the championship, Norton
was shown embracing and kissing his partner, Craig Woodward. During
the telecast, ESPN announcers referred to Woodward as Norton's
husband or spouse. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
In 2011, the couple entered a domestic
partnership in California, just months after Norton publicly
announced he's gay.
“It is extremely important for me to
come out to show other gay athletes, both current and future, that it
is important to come out to show that we are just like everyone
else,” Norton said in a statement. “Being gay doesn't define who
I am as a person or as a professional athlete … It's important to
show people that being gay has nothing to do with one's ability to do
anything as a man, least of all compete at the highest level of
sports.”