By Ethan Moore, sports editor.
If you’ve stumbled upon the ESPN flagship program “Sportscenter” in the past week or so, you’ve probably seen them talking about how the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) football championship game have both decided to move out North Carolina due to the anti-LGBT bathrooms laws that have been passed. These two decisions have come off of the coattails of the NBA moving the All-Star game out of Charlotte for the very same reason.
Whether or not you agree with the law is irrelevant to the point that it’s all very stupid that we even have to talk about this. It’s incredibly ironic that, because the far-left local government of Charlotte, North Carolina made a city ordinance to give more bathroom and privacy rights to the LGBT community, the far-right state government of NC decided to make a larger over-encompassing law to counteract that ordinance and make it so you must use the bathroom based on the gender on your birth certificate. So essentially, Charlotte is being ridiculed for not being inclusive, purely because they were trying to be inclusive.
Since the dawn of time, we all figured out how to use the bathroom without having any problems. Charlotte trying to create this law breaks the cardinal sin of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Both sides of the political see-saw in North Carolina wanted to flex their muscles, and now the entire state is being penalized with less exposure and money.
I know what you’re thinking: “That’s great Ethan, but why are all the organizations cowards for leaving?” Well first of all, if I, a second year college student, can see that Charlotte was just trying to be inclusive and is being punished by the state for it, then I’m positive these large organizations can too. These people are still choosing to penalize Charlotte for something completely out of their control. Essentially, the NCAA and the ACC are just piggybacking off of the NBA who left first and caused a chain-reaction of liberal overreaction and stupidity. So let’s talk about how bad this looks for the NBA.
The NBA decided to move the All-Star game for this season, and yet, they will play multiple games this year in both China and Mexico. If Adam Silver (the NBA commissioner) wants to be a champion for human rights in the world all of a sudden, why is he still playing games in China and Mexico? If the bar for human rights is going to be set above North Carolina, then how the hell can you justify these trips to countries where human rights are enforced to far lower standards? The Chinese still abort girls in the womb, because they aren’t the boys families so desperately desire. The NBA supporting these countries, but not one of their own states is cowardly and completely irresponsible for somebody in such a high position of power. If the governing bodies of sports aren’t going to be any better than the political sideshow that sports fan look to get away from, then let’s at least take them at face value. The NBA is a cowardly organization, who can’t see past their own bottom line to see how hypocritical they’re being, and as far I’m concerned, if the NCAA and ACC are going to follow the NBA because of liberal media pressure, then they’re no better themselves.