{"id":594,"date":"2014-02-18T18:18:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T00:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/?p=594"},"modified":"2014-02-18T18:18:49","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T00:18:49","slug":"michael-sam-comes-out-receives-standing-ovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/archives\/594","title":{"rendered":"Michael Sam Comes Out, Receives Standing Ovation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">During recent years, coming out of the closet has resulted in one or two days of publicity before another celebrity or sports figure declares an LGBT sexual orientation and\/or gender identity. Media surrounding University of Missouri lineman Michael Sam, 2013 All-American defensive end and NFL prospect, just doesn\u2019t stop. Despite some of the evil troll comments on the Internet, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/sports\/sportsnow\/la-sp-sn-michael-sam-standing-ovation-20140215,0,1738411.story#ixzz2tW5kE3V5\">his popularity resulted in a standing ovation <\/a><\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">\u00a0for Sam at a halftime ceremony last week celebrating<a href=\"http:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/2014\/02\/missouri-students-block-westboro-baptist-churchs-protest-of-michael-sam\/\"> the team\u2019s Cotton Bowl<\/a> win over Oklahoma State. <\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">Hundreds of other students stood outside the arena to block the members of extremist Westboro Baptist Church\u2019s protesters. In thanks to his supporters, Sam wrote, \u201cDivided we are weak. Together we are Strong.\u201d Sam\u2019s background is amazing, as shown in this <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/12\/sports\/football\/for-nfl-prospect-michael-sam-upbringing-was-bigger-challenge-than-coming-out-as-gay.html?_r=0 \"><i style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">New York Times <\/i><\/a><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/12\/sports\/football\/for-nfl-prospect-michael-sam-upbringing-was-bigger-challenge-than-coming-out-as-gay.html?_r=0 \">profile<\/a>, <\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">\u00a0 and anti-gay protesters took a hot roasting on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.addictinginfo.org\/2014\/02\/11\/jon-stewarts-take-football-player-michael-sam-coming-gay-video\/  \">Jon Stewart\u2019s <\/a><\/span><i style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.addictinginfo.org\/2014\/02\/11\/jon-stewarts-take-football-player-michael-sam-coming-gay-video\/  \">The Daily Show<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During recent years, coming out of the closet has resulted in one or two days of publicity before another celebrity or sports figure declares an LGBT sexual orientation and\/or gender identity. Media surrounding University of Missouri lineman Michael Sam, 2013 All-American defensive end and NFL prospect, just doesn\u2019t stop. Despite some of the evil troll [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carousel","category-glbt-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}