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How the NCAA Failed the LGBT Community in North Carolina and Houston

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National Collegiate Athletic Association Officials Neglected to Issue Statements in Support of Gay Rights Before Houston Repealed HERO, N.C. Passed Hateful Anti-LGBT Law

The NCAA needs to get its head in the game on LGBT rights. 

First, an NCAA official declined a request to issue a statement in support of an Equal Rights Ordinance in Houston, which will host this weekend’s men’s Final Four, before voters repealed the law in November, The Washington Post reports. Then, the NCAA failed to speak out against North Carolina’s hateful new anti-LGBT law before it passed, according to OutSports’ Cyd Zeigler. 

Zeigler calls the NCAA’s statements against the North Carolina law after it passed “utter bullshit,” and alleges that the organization shares responsibility for the law. 

“While the NCAA national office hosts discussions about LGBT athletes and creates manuals on intersectionality, there has been no real weight behind the supportive words,” Zeigler writes. “The NCAA is now trying to put some false post-mortem pressure on the state to reconsider what it’s done, but the fact that the association has not previously made anti-LGBT laws a deal-breaker for hosting postseason events is a complete failure that demonstrates the weaknesses of the NCAA’s structure and backbone.”

After Indiana passed its anti-LGBT religious freedom law last year, the NCAA spoke out against it, prompting lawmakers to pass an emergency “fix.” However, even though North Carolina is arguably just as much of a mecca for college basketball as Indiana, the NCAA didn’t lift a finger to stop the House Bill 2 from passing earlier this month.  

Also last year, the chairman of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, J. Kent “Kenny” Friedman, approached NCAA Vice President Oliver Luck about making a statement in support of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, the WaPo reports. 

Friedman claims Luck’s response was  “something along the lines of he was sure the NCAA would be very concerned about it, but that they do not take an official position on anything before the fact.” 

However, the NCAA is disputing Friedman’s account, saying it was not contacted directly by city officials. 

“Houston officials did not approach the NCAA about the equal rights ordinance,” the NCAA said. “Oliver Luck was asked at a meeting last year about whether the NCAA would move the Final Four from Houston and he replied that there were no such discussions. The NCAA has been very firm on its commitment to the fair treatment of individuals, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

I was among the journalists who contacted the NCAA last year about HERO, but got no response. 

The pro-HERO campaign has been heavily criticized for failing to effectively respond to the transgender bathroom myth, but it’s also strange that supporters of the ordinance couldn’t get Mayor Annise Parker to make a direct, public appeal to the NCAA for help. 

Then again, such an appeal shouldn’t really be be necessary for the NCAA to speak out. 

Zeigler notes that LGBT advocates recently asked the NCAA to kick out schools that have requested Title IX exemptions that allow them to discriminate against LGBT student-athletes. However, the NCAA’s head of diversity and inclusion responded in a letter by referring to the organization’s “diverse membership,” stressing the importance of “preserving individual institutional values,” and blaming Title IX exemptions on the federal government. 

“Discriminatory practices are not part of diversity,” Zeigler writes. “That the NCAA’s head of diversity would claim otherwise speaks encyclopedic volumes about where the institution truly stands on protecting LGBT people: on the sidelines.”

 

 

 Image via Wikimedia

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News

FBI Witnesses in Georgia Case Didn’t Understand ‘How Elections Work’ Says Expert

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March 27, 2026

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An election expert told a federal judge that the witnesses the FBI relied on during its investigation that led to the seizure of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, misunderstood elections.

Former U.S. Election Assistance Commission official Ryan Macias, “testified that the list of irregularities the FBI identified didn’t represent a crime and that the witnesses the government based their investigation on appeared misinformed,” NBC News reported.

The witnesses the FBI cited “use contradictory terminology and it represents a misunderstanding of how elections work,” Macias said.

Macias also told a judge that the evidence the Bureau used to justify the controversial seizure of the ballots “doesn’t make sense.”

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Fulton County officials submitted a sworn declaration from Macias, who had advised the county during the 2020 election, the Associated Press reported. He said the Justice Department’s affidavit contains “a multitude of false or misleading statements and omissions” and offered explanations for the alleged “deficiencies.”

Fulton County is suing to force the return of its election materials. Its attorney, Abbe Lowell “criticized the government’s witnesses and information, which were laid out in a since-unsealed sworn affidavit that is ‘full of inaccuracies,'” NBC reported.

Lowell also argued that the government’s witness list couldn’t be trusted because it included “someone who was sanctioned twice by the courts for lying about elections.”

The person Lowell referred to, NBC reported, was Kurt Olsen, “a Republican who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Olsen was appointed by President Donald Trump to investigate the 2020 election from within his administration.”

Lowell also told the judge that there was no crime because there was no proof of intentional wrongdoing.

“The only element that turns normal election irregularities into crime is intent,” he said.

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Rubio Vows to ‘Destroy’ Parts of Iran’s Military Trump Bragged Were Already Decimated

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March 27, 2026

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to contradict the commander-in-chief on Friday, speaking on the administration’s war efforts in Iran.

“We’re going to destroy their navy, we are going to destroy their air force, and we are going to significantly destroy their missile launchers so they can never hide behind these things to get a nuclear weapon,” Secretary Rubio said, according to CNN. He also insisted the U.S. military is “ahead of schedule” on these goals.

But according to President Donald Trump, those goals were already completed.

“We’re having, by the way, a tremendous success, as you know, in Iran,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “We had one in Venezuela, and now we’re having one in Iran.”

“They have no Navy left. They have no Air Force left. They have no anti aircraft equipment left, no radar left, no leaders left. The leaders are all gone,” he said.

“Nobody knows who to talk to,” Trump continued, despite having also insisted that he is in productive negotiations with Iran. “But we’re actually talking to the right people and they want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal.”

Iran has publicly denied it is negotiating with the United States.

CNN also reported that Rubio said “that the US can achieve its objectives in the Iran war ‘without any ground troops,’ as more than 1000 extra service members have been ordered to deploy to the region.”

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‘Wrong Answer’: Conservative CPAC Audience Cheers Impeachment

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3 days ago

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March 27, 2026

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The chairman of the influential Conservative Political Action Conference was stunned on Friday when his audience delivered an unexpectedly awkward response.

“How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?” Matt Schlapp asked.

The audience cheered, applauded, and cried, “yeah!”

Schlapp quickly cut them off.

“No. That was the wrong answer,” he retorted, appearing somewhat embarrassed.

“How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?” Schlapp was forced to ask again.

“No,” he quickly directed.

Things did not appear to be going as planned.

“Can someone bring some coffee out?” Schlapp asked.

“We’ve got to keep this House majority!” he then declared, apparently cognizant that impeachment of the president could be possible were Republicans to lose control.

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