It’s just a game: Keep sex out of sports – Moberly Monitor Index
WINONA WHITAKER, Managing Editor
I don’t know why people enjoy sports.
I have no explanation for why we feel so invested in people we don’t know, cheering or complaining as they run up and down a grassy field in their little shorts, kicking a ball toward a net.
I can’t explain why we thrill at watching a group of grown men running into each other so another man can run an oddly shaped ball across a painted line on a field or why we gather behind plexiglass at an icy rink to shout encouragement to heavily padded dudes slapping a disk across an arena of ice.
But I know it has nothing to do with sex.
A Christian, Russian hockey player is being skewered for declining to wear a warm-up jersey in support of the beliefs of LGBTQ+ activists, something he shouldn’t have been asked to do in the first place.
Hockey has nothing to do with sexuality or sexual preferences. That issue should never come up at a game.
The only way this makes any sense is if the National Hockey League were keeping lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people out of the stands. If someone were standing at the door asking for identification cards affirming each spectator’s heterosexuality and refusing admittance to anyone who doesn’t practice it, then, yes, let’s support those who have been discriminated against.
Absent that, we should all be able to enjoy sporting events without thinking about political issues or sexual preference. We should be able to put politics aside and enjoy the contests, limiting our disagreements to the coaching, the talent, the officiating and other game-related subjects.
Philadelphia Flyers star Ivan Provorov should “stop offending people,” said Canadian sports pundit Sid Seixeiro. “This is about inclusivity,” he said.
“The theme from the National Hockey League is that hockey is for everyone, OK? The theme isn’t hockey is for everyone, dot, dot, dot, unless you don’t believe in gay rights, then do whatever you want,” Seixeiro ranted.
The “pride flag,” whose rainbow colors were displayed on the jerseys, is not inclusive. It excludes the majority of U.S. citizens – heterosexuals.
We have an inclusive flag. The U.S. flag represents everyone who is a citizen. If we want sports teams to recognize everyone – to be inclusive – we should make them fly that flag.
LGBTQ+ activism has nothing to do with gay rights or inclusion.
“The gay flag is a sexual flag,” said Frank Rodriquez, executive director of operations for Gays Against Groomers during a recent appearance before a school board. “It represents nothing other than sexual things.
“My community is not discriminated against anymore,” Rodriquez said. “We succeeded.”
Homosexuals fought politically for the right to practice their sexual preferences without prosecution. They won legal battles to keep people from not hiring them and not renting to them based on their sexual practices.
“Pride” events, by contrast, encourage exhibitionists to take their sexual performances into public – parading through streets scantily dressed in sexual attire, or performing sexual dances for children in public schools or libraries.
What people do with their partners is between them. It’s no one else’s business. Neither heterosexual nor homosexual activities should be flaunted in public.
Acknowledging a person’s rights to practice their beliefs is not the same as agreeing with those beliefs. And that’s what “pride night” was all about – bullying people into agreeing with the beliefs and practices of a favored activist group.
No one should be required upon threat of fine or loss of employment to support specific sexual practices – or abortion rights, or gun rights, or the Ukraine war or voter ID.
The NHL said in a statement, “Players are free to decide which initiatives to support, and we continue to encourage their voices and perspectives on social and cultural issues.” That’s inclusion.
We should be able to work with, to eat in a restaurant with, to shop in the same clothing store as people whose views we oppose.
We should be able to watch a hockey game – or play in one – in the company of people who disagree with us. These activities have nothing to do with sexual preferences, gun rights, abortion rights or who we voted for in the last presidential election.
Forcing everyone to support a certain belief is exclusive, not inclusive. It excludes any opinion but the approved one.
Forced conformity leads to division, affirming some beliefs as good and others as bad and marking certain people good and others bad.
I think that was the point, after all.