The tiny Oklahoma school’s fairytale March Madness run has been overshadowed by its troubling history of LGBTQ discrimination and alleged use of conversion therapy
There may be no better example of why the NCAA men’s basketball tournament holds a nation of 330 million people in its thrall for three weeks every year than Oral Roberts University.
The tiny evangelical school from Oklahoma’s second-largest city (enrollment: 3,462) delivered one of the biggest surprises in March Madness history last Friday when it toppled Ohio State University (enrollment: 61,391) in the opening round. A couple of days later, the Golden Eagles knocked off another traditional powerhouse, defeating the University of Florida to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time in nearly 50 years and becoming only the second No 15 seed in history to make it out of the first weekend.
ORAL ROBERTS IS HEADED TO THE #Sweet16 FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1974 ‼️⁰⁰@ORUMBB | #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/FRHoRROJv2
The NCAA has “Equality” written on its courts and it is allowing at least one school (Oral Roberts) that explicitly prohibits homosexuality from participating in its tournaments.
So. https://t.co/932TX9oo7l pic.twitter.com/xDhBoVUCzC
It is the privilege of those with power to tell us who we are. It has been the privilege of heterosexuals to tell transgender men and women what constitutes gender, to corral the tools of scientific inquiry and subject subjective flesh and bone to its will: “You are a man. You are a woman. You two, and only you two, were meant to marry, were meant to fuck.”
Armed with facts – artifacts, photographs, testimony – it is now my privilege to tell that power to fuck off.
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