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Swimmer Tweets Homophobic Statement, Forgiven By Some, Dumped By Others

09/07/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Twits. . .er Tweets are an effective means by which people get into trouble by saying what they probably would say to a friend, but instead say it to the whole world for all to see until the proverbial midden hits the windmill. Swimming champion Stephanie Rice did exactly that when she tweeted “Suck on that faggots. Probs the best game I’ve ever seen!! Well done boys” after her boyfriend, Wallabies star Quade Cooper, and his Australian rugby union team’s last minute victory during an early Sunday morning match. She later removed the offensive and even homophobic comment and apologized.

Rice went on to say in a statement “I made a comment on Twitter on Saturday night in the excitement of the moment. I did not mean to cause offence, and I apologise. I have deleted it from the site.”

She has faced a lot of criticism for her tweet. Former ruby league start Ian Roberts called Rice an “idiot”. Roberts is gay. Diving gold medalist Matthew Mitcham defended Rice saying that she did not intend to offend the LGBT Community.

He stated “I know she’s not homophobic because we are good friends. It was just an extremely poor choice of words. Some people when they use that language don’t realise they are causing offence. But it is an issue for a lot of gay people, who get quite upset about it because they have spent so long trying to change people’s mentality about these things. I don’t find that term very offensive because of my generation but other people do, and you have to consider everyone.”

Roberts has called on Rice’s sponsors to drop her, but Mitcham has stated that he has already forgiven Rice. A Swimming Australia spokesman has stated that the organization does not condone what Rice said, but did note that she apologized and removed the comment.  Rice has since lost some of her sponsors including Jaguar.

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