Equality California announced it will honor Robbie Rogers, the Huntington Beach resident who is the only active openly gay athlete on a major league U.S. sports team, with the Courage in Leadership Award.
The 26-year-old midfielder is to receive the honor at the 2013 Los Angeles Equality Awards Oct. 5 at LA Live.
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Robbie Rogers Becomes First Openly Gay Player to Take North American Field in LA Galaxy Win
Rogers made history on May 26 when he was called in as a substitute during the Los Angeles Galaxy's 4-0 beat down on the Seattle Sounders in Carson. The first openly gay male athlete to play in a North American major league game had only signed with the team the day before. And he'd only come out publicly on Feb. 23.
“By living an authentic life as a proud openly gay athlete, Robbie Rogers is leading the path for others to follow,” John O'Connor, Equality California's executive director, says in a statement. “Rogers is a perfect example of why we sponsored the FAIR Education Act, which enables students to learn about the extraordinary courage and public service of successful lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”
“There are a lot of leaders before me who have been an inspiration and given me courage to be an advocate in my own way,” Rogers says in the statement. “It is with great honor that I accept this award and hopefully inspire someone else to do something great.”
For more information on the awards ceremony by Equality California, the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights advocacy organization in California, visit eqcaawards.org/los-angeles.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.