The potty police, a.k.a. the NBA and the NFL, are at it again, siding with extreme leftist ideology over democracy, states’ rights, and common human decency.
At issue are transgender restrooms. This weekend’s NBA All-Star game host was the City of New Orleans. You’ll recall the original host was to be Charlotte, but the NBA reneged on its commitment to North Carolina over the issue of transgender restrooms, moving the game instead to the Crescent City, famous for its great food and even greater debauchery.
After the smoke cleared from Sunday’s All-Star game, the state of North Carolina was still on the map, somehow surviving the massive economic loss and blow to its prestige such rejection allegedly guaranteed. After watching this year’s festivities, I’m not sure the NBA All-Star game carries much prestige anyway. Kids shooting hoops at your neighborhood schoolyard play better defense, and this year’s skills competition lacked star power. Even NBA diehards are asking what is the point of the game in its current incarnation.
But I digress. Now it is the Lone Star State that is in the political crosshairs of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, both of whom are so crude in their politics they make Nancy Pelosi seem like a mensch.
In Texas is currently debating its own bathroom bill. It would allow public facilities to keep individuals from using restrooms different from their gender. For example, biological men would not be allowed to camp out in women’s public restrooms simply by stating that they identify themselves as female. The bill, however, would allow people to pursue changing their birth certificate gender.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass has fired this warning shot at Texas: “We consider a wide range of factors when making decisions about host locations for league-wide events like the All-Star Game — foremost among them is ensuring the environment where those who participate and attend are treated fairly and equally.” Such talk is a slap in the face of the good people of North Carolina and Texas, considering the NBA has no problem moving games to Red China where human rights and inequality issues are part of the country’s fabric.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy had this to say on Texas’s version of the bathroom bill: “If a proposal that is discriminatory or inconsistent with our values were to become law there that would certainly be a factor considered when thinking about awarding future events.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott to reacted in no uncertain terms: “We don’t care what the NFL thinks and certainly what their political policies are because they are not a political arm of the state of Texas or the United States of America. They need to learn their place in the United States, which is to govern football, not politics.” Three cheers to that.
Now that President Trump has rescinded President Obama’s executive order on transgender restrooms for school children, shouldn’t the NBA and the NFL by logic also be boycotting the entire United States? Maybe for political correctness’ sake Stockholm, Sweden could host the Super Bowl, and the NBA should move its All-Star game to Tehran as a sign of good will — after all, the NBA has already expressed concerns over the so-called travel ban.
Let us not forget the NCAA, which has also become a potty monitor in doling out marquee events, building on its intervention in deciding who should bake wedding cakes for whom.
Since the NBA and NFL are all for boycotts, why not beat them at their own game and, say, withhold Homeland Security and FBI support that from a Super Bowl or All-Star game host that has declared itself a sanctuary city in clear violation of federal law. At minimum we could add New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, New Orleans, and Boston to the no-go list.
The best possible outcome of course would be for the NBA, NFL, and NCAA to stop acting as morality police. All have their own lengthy list of internal morality issues that they should clear up first without worrying about things outside their jurisdiction. As for the external morality fights they have chosen, who made them arbiters of decency in the first place?
