sports

National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman recently announced that players will no longer wear LGBT pride warmup jerseys after some players refused to wear them because of their religious beliefs.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Protecting Pride: Defending the Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans" this week, former NCAA swimming standout Riley Gaines argued that comments from the president of the far-left Human Rights Campaign about Serena Williams were not accurate.

HRC President Kelley Robinson recently said Williams could beat men in a game of tennis during the hearing.

"There's been this news article about men that think they can beat Serena Williams in tennis," Robinson said. "And it's just not the case. She is stronger than them."

But Gaines, a 12-time All-American swimmer who tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in 2022, said in response: "Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd ranked male tennis player," Fox News reports.

Here are three takeaways from Gaines' testimony:

The Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship Monday night for the first time since the team's inception 47 years ago.

In sports news, the Denver Nuggets have won their first NBA Championship in their 47th year in the league. That was this week. Last week, it was the Oklahoma Sooners women’s softball team that dominated headlines, winning their third straight and seventh overall NCAA championship.

For those of us who don’t typically follow this particular sport, the OU team was as well known for their celebrations and press conferences as for their dominant play. The word that comes to mind, partly because it was repeated over and over by those in the program and those watching, is joy. To be clear, for these Sooners, joy is not a consequence of winning. It’s the other way around. When asked about their joy during a press conference a few days before winning the national title, several of the players and the coach pointed to Christ.

So long as we separate Sunday from Monday and the spiritual from the secular, we isolate ourselves from God’s power to transform us into Christlike disciples (Romans 8:29) who love others as we are loved (John 13:34-35). We privatize our faith into subjective belief with no relevance beyond our inner selves. We should not be surprised when others dismiss the relevance of such a personal hobby.

The Oklahoma softball players said that Jesus is the reason for their joy and freedom before their College World Series championship win.

The pro-life community praised Kansas City Chiefs kicker and professing Catholic Harrison Butker after he endorsed a message for the unborn during a White House ceremony this week.

The winningest coach in the history of Elon University women’s basketball says her ultimate goal is to impact her players with the love of Christ and to use her platform “for God's glory.”

Another member of the Los Angeles Dodgers is speaking out against the team’s promotion of a group of “drag queen nuns.”

Days after drawing the ire of the faith community for re-inviting a group of “drag queen nuns” to an LGBT Pride game, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced they would host a “Christian faith” day this summer.