Despite no longer playing in the National Football League, Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted into the NFL, continues to pursue his love of football, taking on a job as a coach for a team in Spain.
Hired by the Barcelona Dragons, Sam, a former defensive end, will be an assistant defensive line coach, will be working with defensive linemen and edge rushers.
“I am extremely grateful for the opportunity joining the Barcelona Dragons organization,” Sam said in a statement published on the team’s Instagram page. “I want to thank GM Bart Iaccarino, HC Andrew Weidinger, and the Barcelona team. I hope to contribute however I can to help the defensive line to be the best pass rushers in the European League.”
Barcelona Dragons logo
Now 32 years old, Sam made history as the first openly gay player in the NFL when he was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2014. Although he was part of the team’s official 90-man preseason roster, and played a few preseason games, he failed to make the final 53-man roster and never played in a regular season game. He was later picked up by the Dallas Cowboys and added to their practice squad, but was released before ever seeing the field.
In May 2015, Sam made history again, signing with a Canadian Football League team (the Montreal Alouettes) and becoming the first openly gay player in the CFL. His time in the CFL would be rocky; at one point, Sam returned to his home in Texas due to unstated personal reasons. However, Sam did get the opportunity to play in an actual game for the Alouettes.
Sam’s football playing career would come to an end just a couple months later with him announcing retirement in August 2015 for mental health reasons.
Though Sam’s time playing professional football was brief, he made history twice — becoming the first openly gay player in two separate leagues. Now, he will have a chance to carve an even more impactful legacy as a coach.
A fundamentalist church in Indianapolis is defending a June 29 sermon in which a lay preacher urged congregants to pray for LGBTQ people to die and suggested they kill themselves.
The remarks, delivered by Stephen Falco during a “Men’s Preaching Night” at Sure Foundation Baptist Church, included multiple homophobic slurs, biblical references, and rants against Pride Month, LGBTQ rights, and what he called “disgusting” and “evil” behavior, according to TheIndianapolis Star.
"Why do I hate sodomites, why do I hate f****ts? Because they attack children," Falco ranted in the sermon, video of which was posted to Sure Foundation Baptist Church's YouTube channel. "They're coming after your children, they are attacking them in schools today, and not only schools, in public places, and they're proud about it!
Baylor University, a Baptist college in Waco, Texas, is rescinding a $643,000 grant it received to study the inclusion of LGBTQ people and women in the church.
The grant, awarded to Baylor’s Center for Church and Community Impact in the School of Social Work, came from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation, which funds progressive, faith-related initiatives focused on church-state separation, interfaith projects, and social justice.
The money was intended to "help foster inclusion and belonging in the church" by funding research into "the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women within congregations," with the goal of encouraging more inclusive practices.
Gina Ortiz Jones was elected mayor of San Antonio in a runoff election on June 7.
The victory was historic, as Jones is not only San Antonio's first out LGBTQ mayor but the first Asian-American female mayor of a major city in Texas and the first female mayor in Texas to have served in a war.
(She's a former Air Force officer and Iraq War veteran who previously served as Under Secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration.)
Jones is also the first mayor since 2005 to not have previously served on the city council and will serve a four-year term.
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