On Ivan Provorov's decision to not wear a pride jersey. Should he have been punished?

 Anyone who knows me knows how critical I've been about religion over the years. I've never been a religious person. I find the concept of religion illogical and I find various aspects of religion harmful. I've been in numberous debates over the years with religious folks where I tried to get them to defend their beliefs under scrutiny. Which is why, when I heard this latest news story about the Flyers' Ivan Provorov, it piqued my interest. As all have heard by now, this past week, the Flyers were celebrating a pride night for the LGBT community, and they were wearing rainbow jerseys for support. Ivan Provorov declined to wear this jersey, stating his religious beliefs as the reason. And as one would expect, this drew anger and offense in media and fan circles.

When I was much younger, if I saw a news story like this, I would have used the incident as an excuse to go into yet another religion bashfest. But my feelings have changed on this issue over the years. While I'm still not a religious person, and find many religious beliefs completely nonsensical and even loathesome, I've come to learn a lot more about why religion is so important to people, and respect their religious freedoms a lot more. We can strongly disagree with someone's beliefs and even dislike the person for those beliefs if you so desire, yet still respect their right to have those beliefs. They believe what they want and we have a right to critique that. It's a good system.

So when I saw social media posts and opinion pieces, like the one from The Inquirer by Marcus Hayes; who argued the Flyers should have benched Provorov for his actions, I found it all disheartening. I don't claim to know what is in another person's heart. I think taking anecdotes and hating that person based on those anecdotes; or acting like we know for certain this represents their entire character, is counterproductive and naive. Thus, I cannot say for certain whether Ivan Provorov truly hates the LGBT community or if he's just a devoutly religious person who follows his faith unwaveringly. Because there is a significant difference. Regardless, him choosing not to wear this jersey alone is not an act of bigotry in and of itself, nor is it an act of discrimination. Some people simply take strong issue with compliance initiatives and will oppose them no matter what they represent. Was that behind his motivations? I don't know, but neither does anyone else. And simply put: his actions were not discriminatory. He chose not to wear an article of clothing. He did not infringe on an LGBT person's rights by this act. No LGBT person's life was adversely affected by this in any way, except perhaps their sensitivities--of which they are entitled to feel.

However, benching Ivan Provorov for refusing to wear the pride jersey would ostensibly be benching him for being a Russian Orthodox. The Flyers would have prevented him from doing his job based on his religious beliefs, which can be argued is religious discrimination. And I'm not sure about the finer workings of the NHL's CBA, but if that were to have happened, as Marcus Hayes opined should have, I'm betting he would've had a strong grievance case against the Flyers for it. If you want to try to change someone's mind about a belief, you do it through conversation, not reprimands or mandates.

The slippery slope of benching and/or punishing someone for their religious(or non-religious) beliefs over refusal to partake in certain gestures is a road that leads nowhere good. Not to mention, peoples' tolerance of religions seems to vary. Scientology, for example, is openly mocked, if not disliked, by pretty much everyone not a Scientologist or named Tom Cruise. Christians are told when they have a belief that clashes with progressive values that they are hateful and they're often ridiculed. Yet every year during Pride Month when various social media companies change their social media avatars to rainbow iterations, and the Middle Eastern branches of those companies do not, no one seems to make a big stink about it. Funny how that is.

People are very selective about which religions they criticize based on how high atop they sit on their perceived "victimhood pyramid." I guess Russian Orthodox isn't very high, if it's even on the pyramid at all. That is, if anyone even knew what a Russian Orthodox was until this past week.

The Reaction to Skip Bayless' tweet during the Damar Hamlin injury

As I was watching last night's Monday Night Football game and witnessed the gut-wrenching injury to Damar Hamlin, I was scouring social media looking for updates on his status, as I assume many were. At some point, I started to see everyone referencing this "vile" Skip Bayless tweet(who I don't personally follow on social media), and assumed it was going to be something really bad. Either cracking a joke about Damar Hamlin or making a mockery of the situation. So finally, I saw it pop up via Quote Tweet on my timeline, and I must have read over the tweet about 7-10 times wondering if I'm missing something in what I regarded as a completely innocuous and totally inoffensive tweet. I went in the other room to get a drink, came back, and read it over again one last time to  make sure I didn't miss anything in the wording or take anything in the wrong context. And I found myself, yet again, on the complete opposite side opinion-wise, of a social media firestorm, which seem to be all too common these days.

Here is the message of the tweet:

"No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game - but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome ... which suddenly seems so irrelevant."

 After thinking about it some, the only thing I could initially come up with is that people took his tweet rhetorically. As in, when he says "the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game - but how?" people thought he meant "There's no way the NFL can postpone this game!" Me? I thought it was pretty clear he meant it as a literal question, especially considering he ended it by saying how irrelevant a regular season outcome is, respective to Damar Hamlin's health. If the tweet was the way I interpreted it,  it's a perfectly legitimate question. Wondering about the playoff ramifications of cancelling games is going to be part of the situation logistically that the NFL is going to have to figure out, and will be a major topic of discussion in the days to come.

As I read more, I saw some people expressing displeasure that he spoke about anything other than Damar Hamlin's injury, and that "It's not time to talk about anything other than Damar Hamlin's livelihood right now." I take issue with these opinions. People have to realize that not everyone subscribes to their etiquette on tragedy. There is no correct or textbook way to deal with tragedy. I've known people who've lost loved ones and spent their day laughing and joking. Not because they didn't care. Not because they found it funny. But because that was the best way for them to deal with grief. And in those situations, people took offense to the way they were handling their losses, simply because another individual chose to respond to a tragedy differently than they would have. People don't seem to realize that their way isn't necessarily the correct way. It's just their way and nothing more.

In Skip's case, he did not post something ill-intended. He did not post something mean or nasty. He asked a question, while in the same tweet reiterating that the regular season outcome is secondary to the livelihood of Damar Hamlin. Everyone's emotional and psychological capacities are different. Someone can be grieving, sad, and concerned, and also have the capacity to discuss other tangentially-related issues to what is occurring in these respective situations. To suggest to another person that they must only make social media posts about one specific topic, otherwise they're insensitive, is naive, ignorant, and self-righteous. If that's the way you want to deal with harrowing situations, then that is totally your right. Don't expect everyone to abide by these same arbitrary guidelines though, nor demand that they do, and have the arrogance to think that if they don't it means they're immoral. No one knows what is going on inside of Skip Bayless emotionally. No one knows how much that horrific injury affected him. And if you think reading one social media posts gives you insight into his mindset, then you're spending way too much time online, and maybe you should put the phone down and take a breather. The world doesn't revolve around social media. Nor is someone's complex emotional state boiled down to a post of text.

However, maybe what I find most disappointing of all, is people using a tragedy as a means to dunk on someone online for social media brownie points and engaging in an internet pile-on. These pile-on's accomplish absolutely nothing. Especially when they're misguided, as they most usually are. They're essentially text-based temper tantrums in real-time. The number of stories that go viral every week due to misinterpretation or misinformation is pretty crazy. Just the other day, the entire internet thought Andrew Tate got arrested because of a pizza box in a photo. Turns out, it was misinfornation. And if you're reading this, maybe you didn't know that. Because that's the thing about viral stories and internet pile-on's. When they happen due to miscommunication or misinformation, people eventually just move on to the next story. The person who is attacked never gets apologized to and the misinformation that gets spread never gets corrected. People get their pound of flesh and move on.

In this case, within a week, everyone will move on from this Skip Bayless story, just like they move on from every other viral story. But the vicious nature in which people on social media respond to tragedies will remain. I don't know if it's because people are emotional during instances like last night, and use anger to fill the void of sadness and the best way to do that is to find people to attack. Or if people are hurting and want the feeling of "camaraderie" in joining on a pile-on with others, to replace that feeling of dread. I'm not a psychologist, I can only speculate. What I will say is: whatever the reason, who is anyone to tell someone else how to respond in a situation like last night? Barring something blatantly mean-spirited or malicious, you are not the arbiter of compassionate discourse, and how you define sensitive and insensitive may not be the same as others do.

I can't believe I'm sitting here coming to the defense of Skip Bayless of all people, someone I'm not a fan of. But I've always said I'll defend anyone, even those I'm not fond if, if I think they've been mistreated or have been misunderstood. And in this case, I definitely think he was. I've seen a lot of absurd social media pile-on's over the years, but this is one of the most ridiculous I have ever seen. And honestly, those who partook in it should be embarrassed.