Back in 1989, homosexuality activists Hunter Madsen and Marshall Kirk made what’s now an interesting prediction. In the future, those who “still feel compelled” to oppose homosexuality will be “cow[ed] and silence[d] … as far as possible,” they wrote in their book After the Ball. The pair also said that these “intransigents … will eventually be effectively silenced by both law and polite society.”
Enter NBA team the Chicago Bulls. Whether it’s part of polite society or just principle-lite society (or both), something is for sure.
It’s trying to silence one of its players, Jaden Ivey, because he cited Christian teaching on homosexuality.
In fact, the Bulls just “waived” Ivey, which is NBA-speak for a formal release from the active roster.
ESPN reported on the story Monday, with a predictably biased tone:
The Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey for conduct detrimental to the team Monday, hours after he posted a lengthy video rant on social media [Instagram] about religion and other topics that included anti-gay sentiments.
In reality, Ivey’s so-called rant was not some drunken, vulgarity-laden disgorgement of epithets. Rather, he passionately editorialized against the sexual devolutionary agenda, citing long-recognized truths. As The New York Times writes:
“The world can proclaim LGBTQ, right?” Ivey told viewers via livestream on Monday morning. “They proclaim Pride Month. And the NBA, they proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say, ‘Come join us for Pride Month, to celebrate unrighteousness.’ They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness.”
Ivey’s Instagram account has more than 200,000 followers. Monday’s comments were part of an extensive livestream, his third over the past week in which he spoke extensively on his religious beliefs.
For more perspective, consider what Ivey also said (often omitted from legacy media reportage. Note: The following has been edited for coherence).
“So how is it that one can’t speak righteousness?” Ivey asked pleadingly. “Don’t we all make judgments on certain things? So how is it, when the gospel is preached, that people hate it? That people don’t want to hear it? And they think it’s strange when someone preaches the gospel — the true gospel?”
Ivey can be heard making his comments in the video below. As you’ll see, too, they were not a “rant,” but more like a principled lamentation and an appeal.
Pocketbook and Pusillanimity, Not Principle
In contrast, it’s perhaps hard construing the Bulls’ actions as principled — even from the sexual devolutionary standpoint. After all, it was already decided last Thursday that Ivey would miss the rest of the season due to a left knee injury. But that’s not all.
Asked to comment on the situation, Bulls’ head coach Billy Donovan was diplomatic. And among his anodyne remarks was that there are “certain standards” they “try to live up to … each and every day.” Well, let’s look at the NBA’s standards.
When Houston Rockets’ general manager Daryl Morey expressed solidarity with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters in 2019, the NBA disavowed him. You see, the league was making $400-$500 million off China in 2019. As ex-player and now commentator Charles Barkley put it, dismissively, it was a “business decision.”
Yes — so was slavery.
There’s still more, too. Combating “abnormal esthetics,” China banned in 2021 the appearance of what it called “sissy men” on TV. How this jells with NBA “standards,” the league didn’t say.
The NBA also has business dealings in countries that criminalize homosexuality. Examples are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Senegal, and Nigeria, the last of which may punish the behavior with death.
So the NBA’s standards allow for a black Nigerian to execute a homosexual — but not for a black American to criticize his behavior before his head is chopped off.
Note, too: The Bulls didn’t have a cow over any of these things.
The Bottom Line
As for the man possibly chopped off his NBA team, he thus far has not backed down. “‘They’re liars, bro. This is lying,’ Ivey said,” The New York Times quotes him as saying, addressing his punishment. “‘They’re lying saying my conduct is detrimental to the team. That’s a lie. Ask any one of them coaches in there, ‘Was I a good teammate?’ All I’m preaching about is Jesus Christ and they waived me. They say I’m crazy, right? I’m psycho.’”
Unlike the Bulls’ pretense about treasuring the sexual devolutionary agenda, however, they may be sincere on this. It’s just as how Barkley is right about such soulless actions being “business” decisions.
The NBA, or the Bulls in particular, isn’t worried about its China or UAE connections because they’re being ignored currently. No one is giving them grief that could harm their bottom line.
In contrast, though, Ivey’s comments will be financially detrimental if they bring the team bad press and damage its marketability.
The lesson here isn’t that we should shut-up, not speak the Truth, and instead worship profit. Rather, it’s this:
If you don’t control the culture, the culture will control you.
On a couple of recent occasions I’ve quoted Andrew Breitbart: “Politics is downstream from culture.” But also downstream from culture are many other things — such as business decisions.
This brings us back to Hunter Madsen and Marshall Kirk. They could predict that those upholding sexual virtue would be “silenced” because they understood economics. (Madsen was a marketing man by trade, do note.) As a writer once put it, “Stigmas are the corollaries of values.” If something is valued, it follows that what opposes it will be devalued. So convincing society to value homosexuality means those opposing it will be devalued.
They’ll also be dismissed by a corporate America that won’t accept the stigma of associating with the stigmatized.
And this is the lesson of “The Acceptance Con”: Misguided tolerance can create monsters. For tolerance of the wrong things eventually brings intolerance of the right ones.
