It looks like the NCAA is nothing but a paper tiger after all. As states around the country considered bills to protect women’s sports, the National Collegiate Athletics Association threatened it would only hold championships in locations “free of discrimination.” In other words, they would withhold any tournaments or championships to punish states that required athletes to compete against their same biological sex. Some politicians, like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), were cowed into surrender. But others boldly held their course.

States like Alabama and Tennessee passed laws to require public school athletes to compete according to their biological sex. The Arkansas legislature overwhelmingly passed into law a robust bill that will protect all women’s sports, including at the collegiate level.

But when the NCAA named the locations of the 16 women’s softball regional tournaments, Alabama (ranked 3rd), Arkansas (ranked 5th), and Tennessee (ranked 18th) all made the cut. (South Dakota State did not). Instead of choosing locations based upon its empty threats, it seems the NCAA chose based upon its usual criteria: “team performance, quality of facilities, and financial considerations,” as well as the additional pandemic-era criteria: “ability to meet the NCAA’s COVID-19 protocols.”

The NCAA’s decision shouldn’t have made news because there was nothing new in the decision. Yet it ignited a firestorm of controversy. An op-ed in USA Today by Nancy Armour labelled the women’s sports bills as “draconian,” “dangerous nonsense,” and an attempt to “otherize” people who identify as transgender from a “radical” group “hellbent on inflaming the culture wars,” and willing to “twist facts” to do it. Ironically, she levels these charges at conservatives, who are usually the victims of these things. Maybe someone should tell her about BLM, the SPLC, and big tech censorship. Meanwhile, Armour claims the NCAA “doesn’t care about student-athletes,” it lacks a spine and a conscience, and that their “latest act of cowardice” is putting people’s lives in danger.

There are three lessons here. First, sports leagues and corporations ought to realize they’re playing with fire every time they wade into a culture war. They’re almost certain to get burned. They’re more likely to please no one than if they’d done nothing. Second, state legislators and governors should learn the best way to survive an onslaught of woke corporate hysteria is to stand their ground. Georgia’s legislature proved this when they fought off the woke corporate mob that falsely slandered their election integrity law. Despite their loud protestations, corporate executives rarely have the stomach for costly and unprofitable fights against state governments.

Third, there’s strength in numbers. For each state that joins the ranks of those defending sane, science-based policies, the potential firepower of corporations and the media is diluted. Three states passed laws protecting women’s sports this year. All three are hosting NCAA softball regionals, despite the league’s threats to the contrary. To me, that sounds like the score is: States 3, NCAA 0. Imagine if other state legislatures — Florida, Texas, Oklahoma — join them. If the NCAA tries to boycott everywhere, they won’t have a league anymore. We sorely need men and women of courage and faith in elected office to stand up for truth, for right, for commonsense — men and women who will never back down in the face of opposition, and who will stand to fight these battles together.

Originally published here.

Biden Arms Israel with Mixed Messages on Attacks

For a while, the sky was still. With smoke billowing through Gaza, the overnight lull was interrupted by more rocket fire. Israeli jets, which had been grounded in hopes of longer quiet, took off — resuming a fight that shows no signs of stopping. On the West Bank, where fuel and humanitarian aid was finally getting through, an explosion of mortars put a halt to the convoys and the government was forced to close the border. To the north, new shelling from Lebanon came to an abrupt halt when Israel fired back. “I am sure that all our enemies around us see the price we have levied for the aggression against us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned, “and I am sure they will learn the lesson.”

Or have they? The temporary quiet, a few hours peace, was interrupted by more sirens Tuesday, as Hamas launched another round of attacks. While international leaders demand access to the devastated areas, Israeli officials have made it clear, “No deliveries can be made while the bombings continue.” To all of America’s terrorist sympathizers, like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) who’s accused Israel of apartheid, it should be painfully obvious who’s keeping this conflict going.

“We grieve for every noncombatant loss in Gaza, and we grieve for all our civilians who died,” Netanyahu insisted. As for Hamas, “they’re happy with their own civilian casualties, because it gets that the international community to focus [on Israel’s attacks]. That’s wrong. It’s both wrong and unproductive. But actually, what it does is prolong the conflict and escalate and increase the number of casualties that that happen as a result of the continuation of the conflict.”

Here in the U.S., the Democrats and Leftist media are happily playing along — openly condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense. “We get it,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted the press’s radical enablers, “you don’t like the Jews.” And yet the media’s finger-pointing — combined with the outrage from the Democrats’ most vocal anti-Semites — has sparked all kinds of anti-Israeli backlash. Streets from Chicago to L.A. have been filled with protests, as misguided Americans burn blue and white flags and carry signs about Netanyahu’s “war crimes.”

To Republicans like Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), the whole scene is sickening. “Israel is a democracy. Israel is our ally,” he argued on “Washington Watch.” “By contrast, Hamas is a terrorist organization that is not only firing thousands of rockets into cities intending to cause casualties, but they’re doing so… standing behind their own civilians, deliberately launching these rockets from schools, hospitals, mosques.” They want an Israeli counterattack on these buildings, on these innocents, Waltz insists, so that they can use it for propaganda. “It’s sad and disgusting.”

Hamas has launched almost 3,500 rockets into Israel, sending families into bunkers and drivers onto the flat pavement of the road, covering their heads. All of these people, Waltz points out, “have anywhere from 10 to 15 seconds to get their entire family into the bunker once the alarm sounds. That’s the type of threat they live under every day.” Any nation “would destroy a terrorist enemy shooting thousands of missiles at its cities,” Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) argued. Americans should be standing with Israel all the way. The rest of the criticism, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said pointedly, “is hypocritical and detrimental to the global fight against terror.”

As for the mixed messages of the Biden administration, conservatives say, they aren’t helping. On one hand, the White House is resisting the radical wing of its party, and on the other it’s undermining Israeli credibility. Just Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly disputed the Israeli intelligence showing that Hamas was burrowed in the Associated Press headquarters that Netanyahu’s forces leveled after evacuating it. “I haven’t seen it,” Biden’s top diplomat shrugged when he was asked about the “smoking gun” that led to the building’s takedown.

But maybe the better question, Senator Cotton fired back, is: “Why is the Associated Press sharing a building with Hamas? Surely, these intrepid reporters knew who their neighbors were. Did they knowingly allow themselves to be used as human shields by a U.S.-designated terrorist organization? Did the AP pull its punches and decline to report for years on Hamas’s misdeeds? I submit that the AP has some uncomfortable questions to answer.”

Until then, the world will keep watching and praying. You can join in this Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. (ET) as we host a special Israel-focused Pray Vote Stand broadcast. To watch live, click over to PrayVoteStand.org.

Originally published here.

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