Dan Woog is an educator, writer, and soccer coach based in Connecticut. In his column for last weekend’s edition of the publication Letters from Camp Rehoboth, he has some high praise for Major League Soccer, calling soccer “a sports world leader in many LGBT-related ways.”

He cites the recent move to break away from the Boy Scouts, the actions following Colin Clark’s use of a gay slur, and club Pride Nights as examples of Major League Soccer’s leadership. He dedicates a whole paragraph to the recent actions of the Chicago Fire partnering with Equality Illinois like staff marching in the Chicago Pride Parade and Jay Nolly and Dan Gargan attending a cocktail party for the group.

He even gives us a little bit of love:

On their own, soccer fans have started a private effort to get professional soccer players to publicly affirm their support for gay rights. The drive is taking place at the website gay4soccer.com.  (The tagline—riffing on a long-ago denigration of soccer—is “because soccer isn’t gay, but once in awhile it kinda is.”)

Why does Woog think soccer in North America tends to be more inclusive than other sports? First, he says soccer is more of a game for free thinkers. While gridiron football players have plays barked at them, soccer players have to think on their feet and problem solve on the fly. Second, soccer has already been proven to be more diverse than other sports as far as its international makeup in North America. Sexuality is just another piece to the diversity puzzle.

Dan Woog is the author of “Jocks” and “Jocks 2,” which chronicle the lives of gay athletes. His newest book, “We Kick Balls: True Stories from the Youth Soccer Wars,” is available at Amazon.com. His full column is available from Letters from Camp Rehoboth.