Looks like the NBA’s razzle dazzle over transgender locker rooms and bathrooms hasn’t excited basketball fans. In a knee-jerk reaction last summer, the NBA yanked its 2017 All-Star game out of North Carolina because state leaders put the safety of women and children above the political pandering of the Charlotte mayor and city council. But if the move was meant to punish North Carolina, it backfired. Big time.

According to the latest reports, the only one hurting from Adam Silver’s announcement is the league itself. Ticket sales for the game (which was moved to New Orleans) were in the basement, analysts said before last weekend’s celebration — with nowhere to go but down. On the eve of the event, the cheapest seats at Smoothie King Center in Louisiana were $184 — a 71 percent decrease from last year in Toronto, where fans were shelling out $644 to sit in the rafters. And if history is any indication, the plunge only got worse heading into last weekend. “In 2014, when New Orleans last hosted the All-Star Game, prices fell 39 percent between Friday and tip-off on Sunday.” Overall, Fox Business tracked, tickets to this year’s game sold for an average of $1,007 on TicketIQ — an enormous drop from 2016, when “the average resale price for the stood at more than $2,000.” Even sales for favorites like the Slam Dunk contest and Three-Point contest were a bargain — costing half as much as last year.

Experts like Jesse Lawrence blame the city’s All-Star fatigue. But could it be that fans are just as tired of the league’s political agenda? Sports used to be a refuge from politics. Now, with the NFL firing warning shots over Texas’s Privacy Act and the NBA jumping through hoops to show its allegiance to the radical Left, most Americans are sending a message of their own: start listening to fans – not fanatics! ESPN is paying through the nose for its activism, as ratings fall faster than Colin Kaepernick’s jersey sales. With the network bleeding more than a half-million subscribers (621,000) between October and November of last year, executives still refused to backtrack.

“As it turns out, ESPN is far from immune from the political fever that has afflicted so much of the country over the past year,” the network’s public editor explained. “Internally, there’s a feeling among many staffers — both liberal and conservative — that the company’s perceived move leftward has had a stifling effect on discourse inside the company… Consumers have sensed that same leftward movement, alienating some.” The warning signs are everywhere: picking political sides may be hazardous to your financial health. Still, CEOs from Target to Penzey’s Spices charge ahead, ignoring the consumer headwind.

And here’s the irony: The bills these businesses are so intent on protesting actually defend their right to act as liberally as they’d like. Texas’s SB 6 and North Carolina’s HB 2 firmly support business like the NBA making their own decisions on things like gender-free bathrooms. Neither state believes the government should be telling executives how to run their companies, especially on policies that carry as much liability as this one. Even more ironic, the NBA and NCAA moved their games to states with similar laws!

In the end, all this protest accomplishes is showing how ignorant these commissioners are on the root legislation and proving how far outside the mainstream their leagues are. Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans have a message for the NBA, NCAA, and NFL: If they want to walk out on fans in the name of political correctness, that’s their choice. Don’t let the bathroom door hit you on the way out.

Originally published here.

BSA Scouts Out the Competition

America doesn’t need more evidence that the transgender agenda isn’t a political winner — but the Boy Scouts are providing it anyway. A month after opening up their ranks to gender-confused scouts, the mass exodus is already underway. After barely surviving their leftward lurch in 2013, when the organization defied parents and opened the door to troops who identify as gay, the century-old group seems intent on traveling the path to complete irrelevance. “After weeks of significant conversations at all levels of our organization, we realize that referring to birth certificates as the reference point is no longer sufficient. Communities and state laws are now interpreting gender identity differently,” chief scout Michael Surbaugh announced at the end of January.

Those “significant conversations” must not have included families who are leaving the organization in record numbers. Others, like the Catholic Archdiocese in St. Louis, are hoping some good old-fashioned pressure might work. “We will continue to be in dialogue with Boy Scouts of America in hopes that they will recognize their error and rededicate themselves to serving the needs of the boys in the organization.” Based on the BSA’s track record, common sense rarely wins out — a fact that most troops are taking to heart. If there is a silver lining to the demise of one of America’s proudest traditions, it’s that the conservative alternative to the Scouts — Trail Life USA — can barely keep up with the demand. After launching in 2014, Trail Life CEO Mark Hancock has watched the organization grow by leaps and bounds, but it’s nothing compares to the latest surge.

“In the wake of this decision,” he tells reporters, “Trail Life USA has experienced a tremendous increase in the number of inquiries by families that will no longer enroll their sons in Boy Scouts and from Troop leaders who are looking for someone to uphold the timeless values they’ve held dear. In fact, our website achieved a historic number of visitors; so many it nearly crashed us! Our ‘Troop Locator Map’ that tells parents where to find a Troop for their sons reached its daily potential in minutes; we had to adjust our parameters to handle the flow. Our auto-reply email system responded to so many requests that it was labeled as spam, requiring us to add multiple auto-reply addresses on-the-fly to allow the system to keep up with requests.”

The demand is so overwhelming, Hancock explains, that the organization has “pushed a few employees from part time to full time and pushed some from full time to overtime to handle the inquiries from troops around the country that are looking for an organization that’s more aligned with the original timeless values of Boy Scouts.” With our friends in American Heritage Girls, we look forward to watching how God uses Trail Life to do what the Boy Scouts started out doing: teaching boys to be men worthy of respect. For more details or to find a troop near you, check out the website.

Originally published here.

Granite State Gets Rock Solid Testimony

In New Hampshire, it’s double-your-trouble with two bills meant to take away freedom under the mask of “tolerance.” The first is a bill that bans sexual reorientation therapy for children under 18, robbing parents of a crucial choice to help their confused kids. As if that weren’t bad enough, liberals are also trying to award special rights on the basis of gender identity — including using the government to punish businesses that designate bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers for men only and women only. FRC’s Peter Sprigg was on hand in the Granite State to testify before the legislature on both attacks on locals’ liberty. As he explained, the attacks on reorientation therapy usually have nothing to do with their effectiveness and everything to do with politics. And, as Peter points out, there is abundant anecdotal evidence that such therapies work.

Many people say that they have been helped by such therapies to change from predominantly homosexual attractions, behaviors, or identity to predominantly heterosexual ones. There is also scientific evidence. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality has cited ‘600 reports of clinicians, researchers, and former clients – primarily from professional and peer-reviewed scientific journals’ which show that ‘reorientation treatment has been helpful to many.’

Even the increasingly liberal American Psychological Association admits that “participants reporting beneficial effects in some studies perceived changes to their sexuality, such as in their sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual behavior, [and/or] sexual orientation identity.” (To read Peter’s full testimony, click here.)

As for opening up local bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms to anyone, the harms are many and documented. In Target stores, where women and children are left vulnerable, at least a half dozen men have been arrested for voyeurism — or worse. Girls are petrified to change for gym in Palatine, Illinois. Even hard-line Democrats are resigning their jobs over clashes with groups like the ACLU on the policy. Companies that embrace the idea are hemorrhaging dollars. So the real question ought to be: why would anyone consider such a risky proposition in the first place?

“At its heart, the debate over this bill is not about ‘gender identity’ or discrimination,” Peter pointed out. “What we are debating here today is: freedom… I would submit to you that liberty and ‘non-discrimination’ are not equally important values. In our country, liberty is the fundamental value that towers above almost all others, exceeded only by life itself. Does that mean that we should allow any form of ‘discrimination’ in the name of liberty? No — but it does mean that ‘non-discrimination’ laws (in which the coercive power of the government is brought to bear against the freedom of the individual business owner) should represent only the narrowest and most limited possible exception to the principle of liberty.”

Peter’s right. In a state that proclaims, “Live Free or Die,” the least we should do is leave people free from government coercion.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.