This guy is such an inspiration

... in so many ways.

You know how you wish more professional athletes would come out — while still actually playing their sports? Now Welsh British Lions rugby player Gareth Thomas has done just that. Too bad Americans have never heard his name before. Or even what his "caps" record means. 

But across the pond, in fancy Europe, it's a big deal. Because a guy who was celebrated for screwing lots of ladies (and thereby cheating on his wife), and pummeling other guys who dared question his heterosexuality.

From The Daily Mail:

As a young man he bonded with rugby mates in the pub over tales of sexual conquests, and flirted with pretty girls eager to bag a sporting hero.

After his marriage in 2002 to teenage sweetheart Jemma – the woman he called his 'rock' – he spoke movingly of their desire to become parents and the heartbreak of her suffering three miscarriages. And if anyone dared to suggest he was anything other than 100 per cent straight, Gareth 'Alfie' Thomas was prepared to make them see the error of their ways. With his fists, if necessary.

But, as he admits in the Daily Mail today, it was all a pretence, a fragile artifice – and one which came crashing down around his ears on November 4, 2006, following a Wales game in Cardiff. Breaking down in tears in the changing rooms of the Millennium Stadium, Gareth finally realised he could not go on living a lie. Keeping his true sexuality a secret was destroying him.

Well Gareth was on Ellen's show and had a few things to say. I say: "Good for him! "I wish more people would get over it and come on out. The more we show folks we are just like other folks the sooner it will be a non-issue. 

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