This is March media Madness. Left-stream media bigotry reigns supreme and universities are judged on how welcoming they are to LGBT causes.
You may recall that last year USA Today drew the wrath of conservatives by demanding that Oral Roberts University be banned from the tournament by the NCAA because its student handbook required Christian moral behavior. In 2019, the Deadspin blog prayed that Liberty University would lose in the NCAA Tournament.
This week, the Outsports blog lists some connection to LGBTQ news for every school in the Big Dance. Some of Cyd Zeigler’s entries are pathetically trivial, while others are downright mean.
For starters, the 10th-seed in the South Region, Loyola-Chicago got docked for its policy of allowing only straight Catholic couples to marry at the school’s chapel.
Another Catholic institution, Providence College “has had a series of fits and starts with efforts to elevate voices on various sides of LGBTQ acceptance,” Zeigler griped. The reason for this is John Corvino from Wayne State University, a philosopher who was to speak on equality in marriage. Providence nixed it because it would have defied the college’s fundamental principles.
Duke took a hit because, 13 years ago, a writer said, “Duke men’s basketball players seem to have been subjected to more homophobia than most. …” Outsports obviously has a long and bitter memory.
Davidson also gets whistled for a technical foul because, in 2020, a student named Mandy Muse said her homosexual experience there is “muted.”
Tennessee? Zapped in protest at the defunding of its LGBTQ student centre. It was later funded by alumni.
Baylor took a shellacking from Outsports because women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey is homophobic. Another the red state school, Texas Tech, is being sued by former women’s head basketball coach Marlene Stallings, who is LGBTQ.
Ed Orgeron is no longer the football coach at LSU, but the Tigers get slapped down because their former coach behaved “like a homophobic jerk.”
These are the schools that make the list. Outsports seems to have rediscovered some old, dusty files in order to compile its lovely list.
Though a Spokane, Wash., Catholic bishop objected, Gonzaga launched the Lincoln LGBTQ+ Rights Clinic, run by the university’s School of Law and Center for Civil and Human Rights, in 2020.
Arkansas made the winner’s circle because KC Cross is a queer, nonbinary person working in the University of Arkansas athletics department. He’s changing hearts and minds there.
Michigan State’s cheerleaders were often homosexual. One member of Alabama’s rowing team was homosexual. Boise State previously had a homosexual president for it men’s club volleyball team.
In 2016, Vermont women’s basketball team canceled its game at North Carolina because the state previously passed a “bathroom bill.”
Iowa State may have the topper of them all in Tina Hillman, a national champion shot putter — a “pansexual.”
That’s not the exhaustive Outsports list, but these are schools with great LGBTQ records and some that need work, Zeigler says. It’s typical March MedienMadness season.
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