Tyson Fury is the new heavyweight champion of the world and a British sportsman.  The BBC Sports Personality Of The Year award shortlists 12 British sportsmen and women every year who have made a successful contribution to British sporting achievement.  The event celebrates success and provides young people with aspirations to become successful themselves.  We should, rightly, see these people as role models.

However Tyson Fury is not a role model.  He has been previously fined by the British Board of Boxing Control for making homophobic tweets and describing fellow boxers as "100% homosexual" and recently was quoted in The Mail On Sunday comparing gay people with paedophiles.  He has been criticised for these comments by Shadow Cabinet Minister Chris Bryant because "his aggressive style of foul homophobia is precisely the kind that leads to young gay suicides”, this is not the kind of behaviour that merits inclusion on such a well respected award programme which will be watched by millions of British television viewers.

This petition demands that the BBC reconsider their actions by removing Tyson Fury from the shortlist.  Whilst he has made a considerable sporting achievement his views have no place in a modern tolerant Britain in 2015