In the past few weeks the state of Indiana has been receiving
a lot of criticism about its newly passed religious freedom legislation. This
new law, which may be made effective as soon as July of this year, “prohibits state laws that "substantially
burden" a person's ability to follow his or her religious beliefs” (Jennings, 2015, para. 6). This legislation has
caused a lot of turbulence in recent news but is extremely intriguing because it
has become major news in the sport world.
A
major public stance was taken by Pat Haden, who is the University
of Southern California’s athletic director last week as he made a public announcement
via Twitter stating:
“I am the proud father
of a gay son. In his honor, I will not be attending the CFP committee meeting
in Indy this week. #EmbraceDiversity” (Boren, 2015, para. 2).
The
CFP committee meeting Haden is referring to is the College Football Playoff
meeting to discuss the final four of college football hosted in Indianapolis. This
statement was accepted and understood by Bill Hancock, who is the executive director of the CFP.
Hancock had similar reactions to Haden’s decision as NCAA President Emmert,
stating that everyone has a right to express their opinions and beliefs and
Haden has done so (Jennings, 2105).
Sport has
the power to influence the masses and through decisions and support of equal
treatment of all human beings, it may just change the law and the norm. Many
celebrities have spoken out in disgust to this law and if we can get a few more
athletes to show their support for this dismissal of this law, we may just be
able to change the legislators mind. If they get enough people on board to
boycott and not attend many different events in the state of Indiana, things
may just change because they will be losing out on a huge portion of revenue
for the state businesses.
In response
to these articles and the new religious freedom law, regardless of your
beliefs, do you think that sport may have a big enough platform to make a
social change? Will the refusal of many “big-time names” to attend events held
in the state of Indiana be enough to make a difference?
References:
Jennings, C. (2015). Pat
Haden to boycott meeting. ESPN.
Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/college-football/story/_/id/12593229/usc-trojans-ad-pat-haden-boycott-college-football-playoff-meetings-indianapolis-religious-freedom-law
Boren, C. (2015). USC’s Pat Haden, ‘proud father of gay son,’ will skip CFP meeting in Indiana. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/03/31/uscs-pat-haden-proud-father-of-gay-so
Marissa Tashenberg
I have recently moved to Indianapolis and can honestly say I have not talked to anyone in this city that is a supporter of this new legislation. I think that athletes that are often in the media will be able to take a huge stand against this law and show support to possibly get this law changed. The legislators have already back tracked a bit by proposing some variations and changes to the law and I feel this is just the beginning of what could possibly happen.
ReplyDeleteBy all people involved in athletics not attending events, the state will have to make a change. With Indianapolis having such a big platform for sports, I feel that this city alone will force legislation to be adjusted. This is especially true because of the fact that the NCAA headquarters are located here. Something will have to change as it could be possible that the NCAA moves out of Indiana.
Derek Shay
I think there's no question that sport has a big enough platform to influence diversity but unfortunately, not enough to make a total social change. Simply because as much as many of of love and admire sport, there are many others who care nothing of it and do not follow it. Diversity goes far beyond sport, as much as I'd love to believe sport had that much power to where it could make that much of a difference, I have to consider those who don't feel as deeply as I do about sport. With that said though, I do still believe that it is a major platform to play its role in the effort of social change. This same theory applies to whether it is house hold names or not, sport could only play it's part, but that's all its responsible for is an equal contribution in effort of making a difference.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Robinson