By Staff
Christian Action League
September 15, 2016
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., GREENSBORO, N.C. – This week both the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) based in Indianapolis, Indiana and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), based in Greensboro, North Carolina, announced that they would be pulling championship games out of the Tar Heel sate as a protest against HB 2.
On Monday, NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement about the decision, “We believe in providing a safe and respectful environment at our events and are committed to providing the best experience possible for college athletes, fans and everyone else taking part in our championships.”
John Swofford, the ACC Commissioner, said in his statement on Wednesday, “The ACC Council of Presidents made it clear that the core values of this league are of the utmost importance, and the opposition to any form of discrimination is paramount.”
Both decisions received a swift response from the North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) and the Governor’s office.
Spokeswoman for the NCGOP, Kami Mueller, issued a thought-provoking yet scathing response, saying, “This is so absurd it’s almost comical. I genuinely look forward to the NCAA merging all men’s and women’s teams together as singular, unified, unisex teams. Under the NCAA’s logic, colleges should make cheerleaders and football players share bathrooms, showers and hotel rooms. This decision is an assault to female athletes across the nation. If you are unwilling to have women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, how do you have a women’s team? I wish the NCAA was this concerned about the women who were raped at Baylor. Perhaps the NCAA should stop with their political peacocking – and instead focus their energies on making sure our nation’s collegiate athletes are safe, both on and off the field.”
“The issue of redefining gender and basic norms of privacy will be resolved in the near future in the United States court system for not only North Carolina, but the entire nation,” said Governor Pat McCrory in his response. “I strongly encourage all public and private institutions to both respect and allow our nation’s judicial system to proceed without economic threats or political retaliation toward the 22 states that are currently challenging government overreach. Sadly, the NCAA, a multi-billion dollar, tax-exempt monopoly, failed to show this respect at the expense of our student athletes and hard-working men and women.”
The content of the Governor’s statement regarding the ACC’s decision was similar to the one about the NCAA.
Pro-family leaders also decried the decision by the NCAA and the ACC.
John Rustin, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council, said, “It seems allowing men to enter women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and showers in sporting facilities across the nation is now part of the NCAA’s notion of ‘a safe and respectful environment.’ As far as ‘providing the best experience possible.’ What about women and children who have been victimized by sexual assault and who would fear that a man would appear in the restroom, shower, or locker room they are using at one of these venues?’
“The NCAA’s actions represent the height of hypocrisy and political correctness run amok,” added Rustin.
NC Values Coalition executive director, Tami Fitzgerald, released a statement declaring, “There is an expectation of privacy when women and children go into the shower or locker room, and its more than an expectation – it’s a right. And our elected officials have a duty to protect that right. The NCAA is punishing the state of North Carolina because it dares to stand up for the common sense notion that everyone has a right to privacy, decency, and safety in bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.”
Dr. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, made a couple of Facebook posts stating his frustration. He said the NCAA had obviously become the “thug arm of the Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ activists groups and the Democratic Party.”
He said the governing board of the NCAA touted the virtue of non-discrimination, but were actually working vigorously to manufacture “special privileges for a radical few by discriminating against the great state of North Carolina.”
Creech also lamented the fact that the NCAA and the ACC represent the people who are training our children in institutions of higher learning.
“Let me take this opportunity to say that every dirty bird from atheistic Marxist to gay activist seeks to build a nest and lay its eggs in the minds of students on the campuses of public colleges and universities,” said Creech. “Should it not be terribly disconcerting that the NCAA and the ACC represent the people who are teaching and training our children?”
“Only the most misguided in life would insist men should be allowed to use a women’s bathroom, locker room, or shower. Only those who hate religion or religious liberty, or at the least fail to understand its paramount importance to the culture, would insist North Carolinians should not have the right to live and work according to their peacefully held beliefs without being punished by the government – something the Charlotte ordinance took away and HB 2 restored. Only a reprobate mind would insist these once cherished, absolute, and immovable verities must now take a backseat to the purely subjective reasoning of transgenderism,” he concluded.
Despite the mass confusion about HB 2, fostered largely by the media’s smear campaign, HB 2 – Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act was not a huge change or an unprecedented overreach that denied rights. Instead it clarified what had been the law for many years in North Carolina.
The law provides for single-sex multiple occupancy bathrooms and changing facilities in public buildings, schools and agencies, while also allowing accommodations for single occupancy facilities and other exceptions.
The measure was passed by the NC General Assembly and signed by the Governor, after the city of Charlotte overstepped its constitutional authority by adopting a city ordinance that required any individual, regardless of his or her biological anatomy, be allowed to use any restroom, locker room, shower, or changing room, with whichever gender he or she subjectively identified. The ordinance was imposed on private businesses, churches and schools. There were an estimated 20,000 private entities in the city that would have been affected.
In response to the news of Charlotte’s actions, North Carolinians inundated the offices of their state lawmakers with contacts requesting immediate corrective action in a special session of the General Assembly, before the date when the ordinance was scheduled to take effect. Lawmakers complied, both Republicans and Democrats, and set a uniform common sense policy for government facilities in the state, but left private businesses and churches free to make their own decisions regarding accommodations.
The decision by the NCAA and ACC to remove championship games from the Tar Heel state comes with indifference to a lawsuit filed in federal court last week. The lawsuit complains on the behalf of girls from 11 families who say a Minnesota public high school is not protecting them from a transgender student that has undressed in front of them and also engaged in twerking, grinding and other sexually explicit activities in the girl’s locker room. These girls, as well as many others not named in the suit, were deeply upset by the experience.
In a communique’ to their supporters, NC Values Coalition head, Fitzgerald, noted the filing of the lawsuit and said the girls were left in tears after they had the types of policies the NCAA and the ACC are pushing on NC forced upon them. “The very privacy and dignity of our sons and daughters is at stake,” wrote Fitzgerald.
Wednesday, the Minnesota Family Policy Council (MFPC) unveiled a new nationwide project called “Ask Me First.” The project features testimonies by women across the country negatively impacted by policies allowing men into women’s bathroom facilities.
In an email announcing the project, the MFPC says, “The Obama Administration, school administrators, and athletic associations need to seriously consider their responsibility to protect the safety and privacy of women and children within their spheres of influence.”
Despite this week’s ramped-up pressure from the NCAA and the ACC to repeal HB 2, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest stated unequivocally, “The line has now been drawn in the sand, first by Hollywood, now by the NBA and NCAA, either accept their ‘progressive sexual agenda’ or pay the price. North Carolina will not play that game. We value our women too much to put a price tag on their heads.”