March Madness went into full swing today, and two private Christian universities were excoriated for standing out from the hedonistic norms of public state universities. The Outsports blog railed at Baylor University and Oral Roberts University as “homophobic” outliers for their biblical beliefs. As in way out there from LGBTQABCD orthodoxy.
Outsports blogger Alex Reimer ripped Oral Roberts and Baylor to shreds for not playing ball with secular, hedonistic state universities when it comes to views on marriage and sexuality.
In fact, Baylor observes two proud traditions almost every spring, Reimer charges: playing in March Madness, and “being exposed on Outsports for its history of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.” Baylor still believes in archaic values such as one-man, one-woman marriage. So 20th century.
Baylor is a private Baptist institution that upholds God’s plan for marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Homosexuality is a campus taboo, though the lesbian Brittney Griner formerly played basketball at the school. Left unsaid by Reimer is that Griner’s lesbian WNBA world more than makes up for her sexual orientation having been a closeted no-no at Baylor.
Emily Nkosi, who previously played for the Baylor women’s basketball team, wrote in an Outsports essay that Griner’s Baylor coach, Kim Mulkey (now coaching at LSU) was “unfairly singled out” for upholding Baylor’s dominant straight culture. Nkosi was too gripped by fear of this straight culture to emerge from the closet when she played at Baylor.
Baylor only began recognizing an LGBTQABCD group on campus last April. These baby steps are too little and too late, Reimer moans.
Oral Roberts is even more “exclusionary than Baylor,” Reimer wails. “Let’s start here: the school’s honor code bans gays.”:
At ORU, we pledge not to engage in or attempt to engage in any illicit, or unscriptural sexual acts, which includes any homosexual activity and sexual intercourse with one who is not a spouse and, we pledge not be united in marriage other than a marriage between one man and one woman.
The horror!
ORU’s biblical beliefs are so offensive to the hedonistic, sexually libertine world of big-time sports that when the team won two NCAA Tournament games in 2021, USA Today called for it to be banned from NCAA competition. Outsports and other hateful alphabet mafia media tore them to pieces for their “painful history of homophobia.”
Reimer points out that Baylor and Oral Roberts athletes are the victims of administrators who set their “onerous rules.” Now these universities are being singled out for “the sins of their administrators.” He hopes that someday college basketball won’t be “marred” by anti-gay rules and sentiments of private, Christian universities.
Contrary to Outsports and other anti-Christian bigots, freedom of conscience is still legal in the United States. Religious liberty is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment. Let’s hope multitudes of Americans will be inspired to stand as courageously for their faith as Oral Roberts and Baylor.
