June is LGBTQ Pride month, which means that for many conservative leaders in our fine nation it is also “Will I or Won’t I?” Month.

The word is out on whether newly elected Ontario premier-designate Doug Ford will attend Toronto’s pride parade in late June, though I suspect the answer is probably not. (The cottage beckons!) But the word is in on federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer: The leader of the official opposition who represents the riding of Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask., has chosen not to attend next weekend’s annual Queen City Pride Parade in Regina, in part because he disapproves of the organization’s decision to disallow uniformed police from marching in it.

But Regina Pride will get along just fine without Scheer or any big-shot politician, because the parade is set to host somebody arguably far more important than Ford and Scheer combined: Scheer’s own brother-in-law, Regina-born NFL star Jon Ryan.

Ryan, a punter for the Seattle Seahawks, whose sister is married to Scheer, is a fierce opponent of discrimination against LGBTQ people. In 2013, after San Francisco 49ers player Chris Culliver said he would reject an openly gay teammate, Ryan, who is heterosexual, called out Culliver on social media. “If Chris Culliver isn’t suspended then I am absolutely embarrassed to be part of a league that accepts this type of behaviour,” he tweeted.

In the aftermath of the 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Ryan took to social media again to chastise a homophobic fan (albeit with some salty language): “Please stop cheering for the Seahawks,” Ryan wrote. “We don’t want piece of s-— fans like you.”

It is because of Ryan’s candour in calling out homophobia — something extremely rare among professional athletes — that the Regina born and raised athlete was recently asked to serve as a Grand Marshal in Regina’s Pride Parade next week. Ryan will share that title with members of another group: AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan.

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Think about that for a second. A heterosexual football star in a football-mad province is going to lead a pride parade alongside an AIDS organization. If that’s not remarkable, I don’t know what is.

But not everybody is as enthused as I am about Ryan’s honoured position in the parade. Some members of Regina’s LGBTQ community expressed their disappointment with the decision at a town-hall meeting this week.

These activists and community members believe it was inappropriate for parade organizers to give such an important role to a straight, cisgender man whose advocacy doesn’t extend beyond a few fiery social media posts.

Here is Cat Haines, a Saskatchewan-based activist, writing in the CBC this week: “The grand marshal of Pride is meant to honour a person or organization that has made significant contributions to the struggle for the rights, equality, and needs of LGBT people through active and continuous work to address critical issues within LGBT communities. This is not Jon Ryan.”

But it is AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan, the group that will co-marshal the event with the NFL player. If Regina pride organizers had given the role to Ryan alone, without also recognizing a local organization, Haines’ objection might be valid. But this isn’t the case. Ryan will be leading the parade in the company of local activists who do serve Regina specifically. So what gives?

If “pride is political,” as activists rightfully remind us every year, why can’t it be diplomatic too? Why can’t it build bridges with communities where anti-LGBTQ sentiment is strongest? In other words, why it can’t it build bridges with the macho world of sports?

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I’ve lost count of the gay men I know — some of them excellent athletes — who abandoned team sports in their youth because of homophobia. These men grew up in less tolerant times but this discrimination persists. Ample research exists indicating that LGBTQ youth regularly drop out of sports or avoid them as a result of bullying.

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Our first priority shouldn’t be to LGBTQ adults already embedded in a community that has their backs, but to closeted kids who are all alone among small-minded people. What will have a bigger impact on those kids? And what will have a bigger impact on their peers? That an AIDS organization, though wholly deserving of the position, is a grand marshal at a pride parade? Or that a straight football hero — the stereotype of the masculine ideal — is marching down the street alongside drag queens? I’ll go with the latter.

At some point, we have to ask ourselves, “What is our goal?” And if the answer is “To make the world a kinder place for LGBTQ people,” it follows that Jon Ryan is a natural choice for Grand Marshal. Those who argue otherwise because he is a straight, cisgender man appear to relish the fight more than they yearn for change.

I’ll give the last word to Dre Barone, a guy who knows a thing or two about homophobia in sports. Barone, by the way, is the only openly gay referee working in professional hockey today.

“I think a champion of equality is a champion of equality,” he told me this morning when I asked him about Ryan leading the parade. “If you’re trying to change the world, wouldn’t you want all the help you can get?”