Jack Tame: It's no longer a personal cause

<p>It took Sanitarium an awfully long time to finally dedicate a series of its Weetbix collector cards to the World Cup-winning Black Ferns. My colleagues at Fair Go covered it in depth, and when it was finally announced that Weetbix would publish a Black Ferns series, most of us assumed that would be that.</p> <p>But a fascinating story in the Herald revealed the best-known women’s rugby player in the World will not be appearing in the trading card series, becuase Ruby Tui insisted on appearing on the cards with a rainbow flag.</p> <p>Sanitarium is owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the church’s official stance opposes same-sex relations. But what’s remarkable about the reporting this week is that when Ruby Tui made the request to appear with a rainbow flag, it wasn’t necessarily Sanitarium that shut it down. According to reporting from Gregor Paul, the company was open to discussing the issue and it was actually New Zealand Rugby that blocked the plan, not wanting to set a precedent in allowing a player to use a commercial proposal to advocate for a personal cause.</p> <p>If this it true, it’s remarkable. Because last I checked, rainbow rights aren’t just a personal cause.</p> <p>New Zealand Rugby has signed up to the Pride Pledge, a public committment to diversity and inclusion. The organisation’s diversity and inclusion strategy specifically names rainbow communties as one of its targetted groups. And of course, many of the Black Ferns team are openly members of the rainbow community.</p> <p>If Ruby Tui had wanted to appear with the logo of a specific political party, of course that would be different. If she’d insisted on wearing branding for a personal company, that would be different too.</p> <p>But surely if a player’s personal cause directly overlaps with the broadly-stated and celebrated cause of the organisation they’re representing, then it’s no longer just a personal cause.</p> <p>I’m glad we live in an age where players feel they can make a stand. I admired Sonny-Bill Williams for