Sexual Orientation and Tennis
Congratulations to gay and lesbian couples everywhere – and to the Supreme Court (1). And what does that have to do with tennis? First, I need to say that this feels like life in a time warp. Not 35 years ago in my home state of Massachusetts I knew a lesbian couple who were really in love, but never lived together because one of them had children and knew that if they did live together, her ex-husband would have sued for full custody and never let her see her children again. And no court in the Commonwealth would have ruled otherwise. Now, no court there would rule in his favor and they could be celebrating their 9th wedding anniversary in the fall. What does that have to do with tennis? In the early 1990s there was a rash of research (or is that rash research?) done by people like Simon LeVay, PhD who stated at the time that he was aligned with those who supported the notion that being gay is all a matter of genetics and biology (Marshall, 1992). The reasoning was that if it were all biological no one could discriminated against gay people. (A dubious thought). My…