First they came for the homosexuals. Then they came for the abortionists. Now religious-righters are coming for you, fantasy football fans.
Cathie Adams, head of the far-right Texas Eagle Forum, sent to her email list today a new essay — penned by the group’s national leader and founder, Phyllis Schlafly — attacking folks who enjoy playing fantasy football.
Schlafly’s essay describes how hellish fantasy football really is:
“Fantasy football means imaginary games played by imaginary teams in imaginary leagues, which are made up of real players whose playing statistics are compiled from real football games. So instead of betting on the actual NFL games, fantasy football participants bet on something that depends on the actual NFL games.”
So the game involves creating “imaginary” entities whose ultimate success depends on the performance of actual individuals who make up those entities. Hmmm… It sounds a lot like mutual fund investing. Diabolical.
Schlafly goes on to explain how fantasy football hurts its participants:
“It’s illegal in most places to bet on actual NFL games, but fantasy football enables participants to do something similar by betting on fantasy teams that win or lose based on how real NFL players perform each week in real NFL games. Participants then boost the audience for sports channels by wasting untold hours watching out-of-town teams that affect the outcome of their bets on fantasy football.”
“Wasting untold hours”? Horrifying. It’s shocking that sports fans would willingly spend their Sundays watching something they enjoy.
Schlafly, who rose to a position of prominence on the religious right by opposing the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, goes on to expose the seamy underbelly of the fantasy football world — a world dominated by men:
“Hard-sell television ads entice viewers to participate in fantasy football games that can cost them many hundreds or thousands of dollars, and even addict them. Average American football fans, mostly men, are transformed into gamblers by get-rich-quick promises using these fantasy sports schemes.”
We certainly acknowledge that gambling is a serious problem for some people — as are other potentially addictive behaviors. But in fairness to fantasy football fans, whether or not their game is simply one of chance or one that also relies on skill and strategy (in choosing and using the actual players on a “team”) is an honest question. And people often spend quite a lot of money on various forms of entertainment that don’t involve gambling. Some of that entertainment might cost “hundreds or thousands of dollars” and involve “wasting untold hours,” as Schlafly puts it.
That brings us to another honest question: why is it that people like Phyllis Schlafly and Cathie Adams, who complain tirelessly about intrusive government, are among the first to want government to impose their personal moral standards on others — on gay people, on women who seek an abortion, on couples seeking to divorce, on gamblers, and so many others. The list is rather long.
Now Schlafly is targeting fans of fantasy football. But even she writes that more than 50 million Americans participate in that activity today. That’s a lot of people. Are they ready for their entertainment to become a political battleground for crusading religious-righters?
14 Comments
Well, the religious right was bound to finally get something correct. 😉
But for the wrong reason: I am more concerned with how fantasy football can be manipulated by the companies that push it — as with the “insider trading” revelations already in the news.
I know it’s the betting and gambling aspect she’s decrying, but still I’m genuinely surprised anyone on the right is attacking anything connected to that quintessentially American sport, football. Why does Phyllis Schafly hate America?
It isn’t America she hates. It is all the people living in America. (NYUK!NYUK!NYUK!!)
I am pro-choice, and I have respect for human life and dignity - myth busted!
A blastocyst is not a human life.
If your god doesn’t like homosexuals, he should stop making so many of them.
He doesn’t make them. Men choose to be that way. And it proves that they are rebelliously fighting God’s natural laws.
And It is no myth that abortionists have no sense of dignity when it comes to human life. In that regard they are soulmates with Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and others in their company.
Your argument isn’t with me anyway, it is with a righteous and holy God.
But enough of this fiddle dee dee, lets be friends and enjoy football season while we can. :()
Likening supporters of abortion to mass murderers (and especially to criminals like Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot) and portraying LGBT people as you do — that’s really beyond the pale. If you really do want an honest and civil dialogue with anyone, you undermine every effort by resorting to that kind of vile and hateful rhetoric.
Well I am sorry Dan. I apologize. It wasn’t my intention to start a bruhaha.
I was really more fascinated by Schaffly and Fantasy Football and make that comment earlier as a joke.
Let me just say though I can’t come to any other conclusion about the two other subjects. One sheds blood and the other… However, I will not stir the pot.
I am not sure how the one statement is hateful. To say something is rebelling against nature is not hateful. It is just stating what I see as a true action. However, I do believe God created men to be creatures of will and I think it is not only a bad choice, it is a wrong choice. I am not going to harm or deride them as they are exercising the wills God made them with. I wish everyone would believe in Jesus but again men are agents of will. God can deal with men on an individual basis.
Unfortunately, with things like this forum, it is hard to say things and not get misconstrued sometimes. Send me an email and I will give you my whole take and you might find it different than what you sometimes read in short snippets.
Well, Amazed, I doubt that any sane, educated person would want to hear your “whole take.” So far you have demonstrated an abject ignorance of history, government, religion and science. I would be willing to trade my fantasy star quarterback on a bet that your math and geography knowledge are similarly stunted.
You want to know what’s grossly obscene, Amazed? It’s comparisons to a rare and personal medical procedure that is also safe and lawful, by the way, to the institutional suppression, oppression and subjugation of people for political and economic greed.
You know what else is obscene, Amazed? Self-proclaimed “preachers” of mega-churches who live the lifestyles of the rich and famous in their mansions and on their private jets *cough*Joel Osteen*cough* off the backs of their congregation many of whom work two or more jobs just to pay the rent; being told by false prophets (for profit) to believe and they will receive. That’s obscene.
You know what else is obscene? Craven politicians who send our young men and women to die for vain glory and so their corporate interests can profit.
And, finally, you know what I find obscene? People like Amazed who can spend so much energy on something they can’t do anything about while all around them their fellow citizens need help and support, the environment needs care and a real difference can be made. What would Jesus do? I think he’d be working next to Jimmy Carter building a house for Habitat for Humanity. He was a carpenter, after all.
What I find amazing is that people forget that of the twelve times hell-fire and damnation are mentioned in the Bible Jesus mentioned it 11 times. You know what else I find amazing is that while something may be legal does not make it morally or ethically right and proper.
You know what I find that is not so amazing is that the Bible talks about men loving evil and there is a mystery to it and because of men’s suppressing truth that God sends men a delusion to where they can’t discern what is right or wrong even though truth stares them in the face. All one has to do is look at gay marriage and global warming.
But there is hope for humanity in that Christ died for men so they could be reconciled to God through the blood of the lamb that was given to us.
As I have said before people will believe what they want to believe. I don’t think they are dumb or stupid for it. They are proving a spiritual blindness. Only God can cure that if people want to be cured.
Dumb and stupid. You said it, Amazed.
Same sex marriage is not about religion, it’s about equal protection under the law. Apparently, some people are either dumb or stupid or both to understand that. It’s about legal rights to inheritance, property and shared rights under the Constitution. No different than for folks married by a JP outside of the church. It’s not a religious issue, it’s a legal issue.
It’s not global warming, it’s climate change. Climate change is documented and already causing huge disruptions around the world. Countries are going to starve before they are flooded. Mass human migrations will dwarf anything we’ve seen in the middle east due to war. The oceans have absorbed 40% of the CO2 dumped into the atmosphere and that is causing a collapse of the ocean food chain due to a lowering of the pH in the ocean. Crustacean populations are being harmed where low pH currents well up, like in the Seattle area where oyster production has been hammered.
Yes, Amazed, rapid climate change is a real problem and it can’t be prayed away. Fortunately, your little narrow-minded group of stupid, dumb, willfully ignorant, god-soaked nuts will not stand in the way of social and global changes that are inevitable.
They already have all the same constitutional rights as anyone else.
The earth is self correcting and has been for its existence. It got changed to climate change when all the warriors for “global warming” were contradicted by every bit a evidence.
I sure wish Dan would say something about your hateful name calling rhetoric. Can’t have it both ways.
Blessings
I just don’t see why it is a problem. That is why it is called FANTASY. Not reality football.
That said I wouldn’t put it on the same plane with abortionists or homosexuals. Abortionists have no respect for human life or human dignity and homosexuals well, they are in rebellion against God all to themselves.
Which is precisely why I play for free, and don’t mess around with my time allocation to the games. It’s not a good look. And government wants to be the new religion; I hope EVERYone reading this realizes that. One world government partnered with what the Catholic church is evolving into, and here come the Anti-Christ. But I’m not trippin’, because #ItIsWritten
Gambling is a sickness with massive social consequences. :()