A difficult situation, and one I have to say on a personal level I'm disappointed in Sammy for. Fair play to the club for addressing it - would have been easy for them to bury their heads in the sand and hope it went away.

His judgement and leadership is usually perfect, but I can’t agree with this one, and feel a bit disappointed. I understand that he may have reservations due to his religious beliefs, but players are happy to have gambling sponsors, but not anything to do with LGBT. The armband should be something that represents the club rather than the individual.

Think the club has gotten a very tricky situation right here in respecting both beliefs. Personally, I’m very proud that we have a captain like sammy who is strong enough to stand up for his beliefs even when it’s not popular in the mainstream media. I also think that it is very hypocritical of people on social media to call for his head but then also preach tolerance and acceptance of other people’s beliefs.

I stand with the Skip on this one, why should LGTBQ be any different to any other supporter of our club.

What a ridiculous society we live in today when we have to justify or explain an individual’s lawful rights or choices like this for fear of causing offence.

Maybe should have given captains armband to one of the other players for the day ?

I’m disappointed but not surprised. Morsy is clearly a great guy. The problem with religion is exactly this( and that it’s nonsense). If forces perfectly good people to adopt bad positions on some social issues. You only have to look at the evangelicals in the US to know anti LGBTQ positions come from religion. As much as I disagree with Sam on this he has my full support as a player and our captain.

Carlisleaway… I couldn’t disagree with you more. The reason for this campaign is the same as the anti racism campaign. It’s a community in society and very much in football that has been overtly discriminated against. Statistically 30% of footballers, coaches and fans are a a part of this community and yet how many are open about it? They know the hate that will come their way.

Carlisleaway… I couldn’t disagree with you more. The reason for this campaign is the same as the anti racism campaign. It’s a community in society and very much in football that has been overtly discriminated against. Statistically 30% of footballers, coaches and fans are a a part of this community and yet how many are open about it? They know the hate that will come their way.

There’s on thing that this country, and many others for that matter, have fought for, and indeed many have died for, and that thing is called democracy. This is a free country, and Sam Morsy, along with people who support LGBTQ+ have a right to their opinions. All Sam was doing, is exercising his.

All 'belief' systems are born from our upbringings and environment. I suppose ideally you would like to think religous people would evolve their thinking over time and realise what some peeps wrote many many years ago, at a different period in time might not all be completely cosher. I am not entirely sure why Sam has not made this step, but I respect that if you are going to practice religion properly, then you are either completely 'in', or 'not in'.

I'm with Skip too! Whether you're religious or non-religious....Everybody's entitled to NOT support anything they want. It doesn't mean they are AGAINST it. The main thing is they're NOT HARMING anyone by NOT supporting it.

Monkey_Blue - Sorry, not with you here. What you talk about is statistically correct, 100%. Nobody should have to compromise their own beliefs or religious persuasion to just fit in with these motions. Just because Sam is a key leader at the club does not mean he has to hang his colours on every initiative that the club supports. In not wearing a rainbow armband he's not going against the ideals of the LGBTQ+ movement, he's not showing any opinion against their values. And this is his right. If he actively went out to oppose their views and values then this would be a very different scenario. There are things that I don't connect with based upon my beliefs. It doesn't mean I will publicly look to speak out against them, I simply do not get involved. Just because a group has been overtly discriminated against for a period of time, doesn't mean that everyone is compelled to publicly support them.

Monkey_Blue - This is exactly my point, you feel he is wrong and not being accepting of LGBT people, yet you then insult the 5.8 billion religious people in the world by saying that their religion is nonsense. I don’t think that’s being very accepting and tolerant do you?

Good on you, Sam Morsy.

Maybe it would have been wise to make Chappers captain given he appears to be vice-captain and is the player ambassador for Rainbow Tractors. This way positive attention would have been given to the initiative rather than creating the divisiveness of dissecting someone's personal view.

It's an incredibly tricky one. In this day and age, Sammy's private views are in the public domain, something I very much doubt that he wishes and something none of us have to face. Should he be criticized for being a product of his religion and devotedly following its rules? Christians have been allowed to get away with hateful perspectives of the LGBTQ communities forever but don't come under the same scrutiny because that's our country's official religion.

Whilst I'd like our captain to stand up to the antiquated beliefs of his religion and shun it's standing on LGBTQ, he is but one individual who is merely going about his day-to-day. It's not on one individual to change communities, rather organizational leadership and governments to implement change. Yes, as individuals we can come together and establish positive societal change in behaviours, but I don't believe picking on one person who doesn't want to be in the public eye and has a private perspective is in the best interests of any community initiative.

I'm sure Sammy treats every individual he meets as equals (because I have no reason to believe he doesn't) and will continue to be a credit to the club. I do think this was an opportunity missed with Chappers if the club wanted to use it's platform positively.

If you have players (and we do) playing in this country who don’t wear a poppy at remembrance time, then equally we have to respect the wishes of those who don’t want to wear the arm band.

On an issue about tolerance, it strikes me as rather odd that some posters are referring to religion as “nonsense”, “antiquated” and forcing people into “bad positions”.
Perhaps devout people consider that the teachings of their religion hold true as much today as when they were written:& shouldn’t be rewritten to align with the views of modern society.
Indeed, rather than singling out certain people like Mr Morsy as being out of step for not specifically supporting this particular issue, it is maybe worth remembering that based on documented religious views, well over 50% of the world’s population are actually aligned to his standpoint, and those against are in fact in the minority. On balance, I would rather have a captain with principles than a virtue signaller like Henderson.

Well done Sammy stand for what you believe

I think this is really difficult. I respect his religious beliefs, does he not respect my sexual orientation, etc.

Would he want me cheering him on, if he knew?

What ever next let's just play football please?

Irrespective of your own sociopolitical views, Sam should have a choice or not whether to make his own statement. I’m not teligious, and I do support inclusivity but I don’t think we need force football captains into meaningless virtue signalling acts.

@del45. Well said

Morsy is captain of the club that has LGBTQ fans, employees and I’d assume players. I understand he has his religious beliefs but this is a football club that’s part of the whole community. As for calling religion nonsense…that’s my opinion, but it’s based on mountains of evidence. People choose which rules they follow from those old books otherwise all monotheists would be advocating for slavery, women to have no rights and executing people for all manner of ridiculous reasons.

Somewhat ironic to be calling-out a single player for not wearing a bloody armband that represents inclusivity.

How about we be inclusive and let him wear whatever he wants, rather than pressure someone to go against their religion.