Story from bnews

Bisexual firefighter burned

Wednesday, 18 April 2007 Story from bnews

by DOUG POLLARD The Mansfield firefighter who says he couldn’t get a job with the Department of Sustainability & Environment (DSE) because of his sexuality has now been dumped by his local footy club. Ken Campagnolo said a DSE manager told him last year he would never get a paid job as a firefighter “because you’re a poof”, though he was welcome as a volunteer. His complaint has been accepted by the Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission. He was also publicly outed at a firefighters’ Christmas party, when he was presented with a Barbie doll by Santa (Trial by Fire, bnews 158). Now he has been dumped as sports trainer for Bonniedoon footy club. Campagnolo has been a trainer there and at Mansfield for almost 16 years. When he turned up for the first training session of the year last week, club president Terry Dale told him he could no longer be a trainer because of what had been written about him in the press. When asked to explain, Dale told bnews he never had any concerns until the story ran in the Herald Sun and local papers, identifying Campagnolo as bisexual. “It’s pretty hard when the under-17s are training down there, parents would get a bit uptight if Kenny was training down there with them,” he said. But he admitted that Campagnolo had never given any cause for concern in all the years he worked with the club, including with the under-17s. “I felt very sorry about nipping it in the bud the way I did, but that’s the way it is,” he said. “You could probably call that a little bit of discrimination, but there’s other work he can do around the club, because we like volunteers,” he said. Campagnolo says he personally told Dale, and all the team managers about his sexuality years ago, including those managing the under-17 teams, and they were unconcerned. “Terry Dale was told, in person, as was Ray Robinson of the Mansfield team, around the time of the Barbie doll incident ten years ago,” said Campagnolo. “Terry once lived on the same street as me, everyone in town knows about me, you can’t hide something like that after you’ve been outed in front of 70 people,” he said. Dale flatly denied he was ever told. Campagnolo said he was very hurt by Dale’s action, which made it seem as if he was a paedophile, but the team members had been very supportive. “When I told them Terry said I couldn’t be there [at training] because of what’d been in the paper, they all said it was bullshit.” John Ronke, area president of the Victorian Country Football League, agreed he knew Campagnolo well, and his sexuality was common knowledge. “I taught him,” he said, “He was a bit if a larrikin at school – typical redhead.” Glenn, the owner of sports website gayfooty.com said it only showed how much further we had to go to gain acceptance in the sport. “I find the ultimate hypocrisy in the footy club still wanting him around because they need members, but he can’t have anything to do with the players,” he said. “This attitude in grassroots football will go a long way towards keeping gay footballers in the closet.” Meanwhile, on Saturday Campagnolo discovered that his replacement as trainer at Bonnie Doone is the local boss of the DSE, Phil Savage.