Just last month, Mid Vermont Christian School’s girls’ varsity basketball team — a high school team by the way — decided to forfeit a playoff game rather than compete against a team from Long Trail Mountain, which has a biological male player who identifies as female. As a result of the team remaining steadfast in both their faith and principles of fairness, the Vermont Principals’ Association has decided to punish them.
Beware of calling good evil and evil good, folks. Such a thing never ends well.
According to TheBlaze, “On Monday, the VPA released a statement banning MVCS from all ‘VPA sanctioned activities and tournaments going forward.’ In other words, MVCS — a school that teaches pre-K all the way through the 12th grade — cannot participate in any athletic or interscholastic event that falls under the VPA’s purview. The vote from VPA’s executive board, comprising 15 members, was unanimous.”
“If you don’t want to follow VPA rules, that’s fine,” Jay Nichols, the VPA’s executive director, went on to say. “But then you’re just not a VPA member. It’s fairly simple. That’s really all we’re gonna really say about it.”
Well, the problem is, the “rules” that Nichols makes reference to in his statement are the VPA’s “Best Practices for Schools Regarding Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students,” which essentially demand that Christian schools dump their beliefs and allow allegedly “transgender and gender nonconforming students … to participate in physical education and sports in accordance with the student’s gender identity.”
This is religious discrimination. Period. There is no other way to describe the odious behavior of the VPA. When you demand a school conform to your way of doing things “or else,” you’re essentially saying that they need to uphold your beliefs while tossing out their own. The school already forfeited the game and their chance to proceed forward. Why further punish them for having beliefs that conflict with your own?
Vicky Fogg, the head of MVCS, defended the school’s choice to pull out of the playoff game rather than subject the girls to a male competitor, stating it was a matter of “safety and fairness.”
“We withdrew from the tournament because we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players,” Fogg wrote in a statement that was given to Fox News Digital toward the end of February. “Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.”
“Though that forfeiture cost the girls’ basketball team a chance at a state title, the MVCS boys’ team participated in their tournament and performed quite well, falling just short in the state championship game against Rivendell Academy, 49-41. Should the VPA’s ban continue, the boys’ team will not be able to avenge their loss next year — or any year after that,” the report concluded.
No one should be forced to violate their conscience. The school felt it could not, in good conscience, play against a team with a transgender player, believing to do so would put their students in jeopardy. This is not the kind of action that should be punished. Just let it go.
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