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.
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