The new NBA season kicked off with an exhibition game last week in the United Arab Emirates.
“Celtics beat the Nuggets 107-103 in the NBA’s preseason opener at Abu Dhabi” [AP – 10/04/2024]
Like many sports leagues, the NBA seeks to increase its revenue by expanding its global following. For the UAE, being awarded the NBA season opener affirms the country’s stature and importance.
Of note, homosexuality is a crime in the United Arab Emirates, with allowable punishment including the death penalty. Transgender cross-dressing is also a crime.
Also of note, the NBA has established the precedent that it either condones or condemns a location’s criminal code regarding sexual behaviors by how the league awards – or revokes - featured exhibition games. By awarding the season-opening exhibition game to Abu Dhabi, the NBA has endorsed the UAE’s brutal criminalization of LGBTQ behavior.
The NBA’s apparent endorsement of criminalizing homosexuality in the Arab world would seem puzzling, because just a few years ago, the NBA revoked the NBA All-Star game from the city of Charlotte after the North Carolina legislature passed legislation banning biological men from entering women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
While it may be entirely consistent for the NBA to oppose homosexuality while still endorsing the right of men to terrorize women in restrooms and changing facilities, the reason given by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for yanking the All-Star Game from Charlotte was that it discriminated against LGBTQ people.
“NBA moving 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte due to anti-LGBT bill” [USA Today – 7/21/2016]
In an unprecedented and monumental decision, the NBA will move the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte, N.C. to another state because of North Carolina’s controversial anti-LGBT law called House Bill 2.
“While we recognize that the NBA cannot choose the law in every city, state, and country in which we do business, we do not believe we can successfully host our All-Star festivities in Charlotte in the climate created by HB2,” the league said in a statement.
What was “the climate” of House Bill 2? This is from a 2016 article at The Federalist titled The Truth About North Carolina’s Bathroom Bill:
This section of HB2 simply and justly states that persons must use the bathroom and locker room that identifies with the gender on their birth certificates. It also states that municipalities requiring different sexes to share public accommodations is inconsistent with North Carolina’s law and constitution.
How hateful! This law prohibited a man in North Carolina from strolling into a women’s restroom and conscripting unsuspecting women into his fetish. Meanwhile in the UAE, this is from the Human Dignity Trust’s website:
Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited under the Criminal Codes of the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, which criminalises ‘unnatural sex with another person’, and Dubai, which criminalises acts of ‘sodomy’. The Federal Penal Code criminalises ‘voluntary debasement’, but it is not clear what acts this covers. These provisions carry a maximum penalty of fourteen years’ imprisonment. Both men and women are criminalised under the law. Same-sex sexual activity may also be penalised under Sharia law, under which the death penalty is possible, though there is no evidence that this has been used against LGBT people.
In addition to potentially being captured by laws that criminalise same-sex activity, trans people may also face prosecution under the Federal Penal Code 1987, which criminalises a ‘male disguising as a female’ with a maximum penalty of one year imprisonment and a fine.
May I also mention that the NBA, which advocates for allowing men into women’s restrooms, has had a problem with its players getting arrested for sex crimes?
“Ex-Trail Blazer Ben McLemore faces rape charge, other counts” [ESPN – 4/10/2024]
Former NBA guard Ben McLemore was arrested by U.S. Marshals on Tuesday and jailed in Oregon, where he faces sex crime charges stemming from allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2021 when he was playing for the Portland Trail Blazers.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver advocates for allowing sexual predators like NBA player Ben McLemore into women’s restrooms so long as they are willing to state they are LGBTQ.
“Ex-NBA player faces charges over sex act with 13-year-old girl” [WPLG Local 10 – 11/02/20018]
There was a time when Luis David Montero-Carrasco had a promising career in the NBA. He played for the Miami Heat, the Detroit Pistons and the Portland Trail Blazers. It is likely that he won't be playing professionally anytime soon. A meeting at the Best Western Hotel at 131 Fairway Dr., in Miami Springs, with a 13-year-old girl is now part of the 25-year-old basketball player's criminal record.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver advocates for allowing sexual predators like NBA player Luis David Montero-Carrasco into women’s restrooms so long as they are willing to state they are LGBTQ.
The good news is that normal Americans are repulsed by what Adam Silver and the NBA are promoting. As Outkick has documented, NBA ratings have plummeted since the NBA went woke, losing 45% of its audience since 2012.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]