While Transparent Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports Potomac Yard pleasure palace was crumbling, the Washington Capitals held its Pride Night at their home — at least until 2050 — Capital One Arena in the District.
The team gave away pride-branded beanies with a special ticket offer, held an auction of autographed player-used sticks wrapped in rainbow-colored “Pride Tape” and posted LGBTQ messages on in-game content.
On Friday, the Wizards held their Pride Night, which included a pregame block party hosted by a local grocery store chain with a special happy hour with pride koozies and souvenir cups given out to the first 100 fans. Throughout the game, LED signage and logos are displayed in pride-flag-themed colors.
The Monumental Sports & Entertainment Foundation announced it would donate $10,000 to Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders, a nonprofit organization that supports and empowers LGBTQ youth in the region.
Meanwhile, here is how Pride Night is celebrated in Qatar, Monumental’s business partner: Any public display of LGBTQ support would likely result in arrest and hard jail time that would include interrogations to reveal to the police anything you may know about other LGBTQ people in hiding in the Islamic country.
“Pride Night is not a possible reality in Qatar at the moment,” said Dr. Nasar Mohamed, a Qatar native who now lives in San Francisco. “Assembly of LGBT individuals is prohibited, both privately and publicly, and there are many reports of police raids on private LGBT gatherings. In fact, the mere symbol of the LGBT movement, the rainbow, can result in the holder facing jail times and fines.”
Qatar is the new investor Monumental welcomed with open arms last year while counting the $200 million the country’s anti-LGBTQ government pumped into Transparent Ted’s coffers. Leonsis called such investments “smart business.”
Dr. Mohamed was the first Qatari to come out publicly as gay during an interview with BBC World before the 2022 World Cup. He has lived in the United States since 2015. He said he could never return to Qatar, or else risk being imprisoned.
When he and I spoke, he referred me to a section on Qatar in a 2021 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, “Our Identities Under Arrest.”
According to that report, consensual sex between two men can be punished by up to 10 years in prison. The report also notes that “many LGBT individuals are not arrested under laws criminalizing same-sex acts, but rather legislation such as ‘Law No. 17 of 2002 on Protection of Community,” which allows for detention without charge or trial for up to six months if “there exist well-founded reasons to believe that the defendant may have committed a crime’ such as ‘violating public morality.”
The report is online if Transparent Ted wants to learn more about his Monumental partners.
Pride Nights exist to make LGBTQ sports fans feel welcome, included and safe in a world where they still often find hostility for no reason other than their sexual orientation.
The Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law reported that one out of 10 violent crimes against LGBTQ individuals are hate crimes, like the death of John Walter Lay in Tampa earlier this month, shot in a dog park by a man who police said used bigoted slurs toward the victim before shooting him. Prosecutors have called it a hate crime.
In Qatar, the hate crimes appear to be committed by the government.
Dr. Mohamed has taken up the case of Manuel Guerrero Avina, a British man who reportedly was thrown in prison in February in Qatar because of his sexuality.
The Mirror newspaper in London reported that Avina’s family says he was arrested after responding to a fake message on the gay dating app Grindr.
His brother Enrique told the paper it was a sting operation by local police and the family has been told Avina is being mistreated in prison and has been pressured to reveal the names of other gays in Qatar.
“According to Manuel’s own family, he has also been forced to identify other LGBT+ contacts within Qatar, forced to witness beatings and torture of other prisoners, threatened, isolated and deprived of food and sufficient water — all because of his sexual orientation,” Dr. Mohamed wrote in an online campaign to free Avina.
Several attempts to get a response from the Qatar government through their embassy went unanswered.
This was the response for this column from a Monumental Sports spokesperson:
“Monumental Sports & Entertainment and our entire community of brands fully support the rights of the LGBTQA+ community and are committed to helping catalyze greater inclusivity and acceptance across all sports, now and into the future. Our individual teams activate theme nights, host fundraisers for local LGBTQA+ community causes and foster a spirit of inclusion throughout their respective seasons. In addition, among MSE’s Employee Resource Groups is the Unity group, which is focused on promoting an environment where MSE’s LGBTQIA+ staff and allies are engaged, empowered and optimizing MSE’s work, vision and mission.
“The investment from the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has no impact on day-to-day operations, management, or culture of MSE or any of our sports teams and brands. Like all of MSE’s minority investors, QIA has no ability to direct, control, or influence MSE or any of its operations.”
Leonsis and Monumental Sports, however, do have the ability to direct, control or influence whose money they take.
Leonsis and Monumental do have the ability to direct, control or influence the hypocrisy of donating money from one pocket to support LGBTQ youth while filling the other pocket with money from the very people who would lock those young people up.
What Leonsis and Monumental don’t seem to have is the ability to feel shame.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.