Good Sports — Out Front salutes gay athletes and wonders: Does their home state make the marriage equality cut?

Robbie Rogers

College: University of Maryland – College Park, Md.

Professional: LA Galaxy – California

California-born beauty Robbie Rogers spent only one season playing soccer at the University of Maryland before he was recruited by the top-level Dutch soccer club Heerenveen. He continued club play in Ohio and England and came out publicly in February 2013. He was signed with his home state team, the LA Galaxy, the following May. So can he marry in Cali? Yep! Besides his years in Holland, the Galaxy marks Rogers’ first team in a marriage equality state. Anyone following his career knows he played for the Maryland Terrapins eight years before marriage equality became the law of the land, and he was on the Columbus Crew before Ohio had any success undoing its 2004 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. His coming out and joining Galaxy came only months before last summer’s landmark Supreme Court rulings that gave Rogers’ fellow gay Californians the right to wed (again). Good job, Golden State.

Brittney Griner

College: Baylor University – Waco, Texas

Professional: Phoenix Mercury – Arizona

At 6’8, Brittney Griner couldn’t help but be noticed at her Houston, Texas high school, where she admits to feeling alienated because of her height and her sexuality. In college, she got the kind of attention she desired when she smashed basketball records held not only by Baylor U, but by the WNBA. She began touring Europe with the U.S. National Team and making headway. At 22, Griner was the only player still in college on the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team. She came out in 2013 and was signed to the Phoenix Mercury as a 1st overall pick. So if she found a sweetheart in the desert, could they marry in Phoenix? Nix. Arizona imposed a state law banning same-sex marriage in 1996.

Michael Sam

High School: Hitchcock High School – Hitchcock, Texas

College: University of Missouri – Columbia, Mo.

Defensive end Michael Sam hails from a state where everything is bigger, perhaps including the level of homophobia among the natives. For the state’s heapin’ helpin’ of institutionalized discrimination, Texas offers no state-level protections for LGBT workers and no same-sex marriage rights. (Same-sex sexual “activity” wasn’t even legal until 2003, when Sam would have been in middle school.) Sam spent his impressive college career in Missouri, a state with a similar lack of protections or rights for LGBT residents. So for our friend Michael Sam, the answer is nope — you cannot marry in the state you play for. But with college ball now behind him, football-loving homophiles in every state are just waiting to see who he’ll represent in the NFL as the first out active player. Watch out for this guy. He could be wearing the orange and blue jersey next season.