is not a feeling. It is not a courtesy. It is not something a corporation grants you when your opinions are convenient and punishes you when they are not. is a main guarantor of the individual, and it is the oxygen of a free society. And right now, brothers and sisters, we are that frog being slow-boiled.
I want you to understand that I am not talking about abstract constitutional theory. Im talking about what happens to a man when he opens his mouth and speaks the truth, and the world comes crashing down on him for it. Im talking about what it costs to say an unpopular thing in a country that was founded on the right to say unpopular things.
Im talking about what happened to Jaden Ivey.
You probably already saw the news. The first thing I saw was the post on X: “The Chicago Bulls announced today that the team has waived guard Jaden Ivey due to conduct detrimental to the team.”
Iveys crime? He posted a video saying that the NBAs “unrighteousness.” On his Instagram post, you can hear the genuine bewilderment in his voice: “How is my conduct detrimental to the team? Because I believe in the truth? Because I know Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life? How?”
That question should stop every one of us cold.
What Ivey focused on was the NBAs institutional promotion of Pride Month. He stated: “The world proclaims LGBTQ, right? They proclaim Pride Month, and the NBA does too. They show it to the world. They say, Come join us for Pride Month, to . They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness.”
OUTKICK: RIGHT OR WRONG, JADEN IVEY WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH TO CHALLENGE THE NBA’S PRIDE
He did not say anything derogatory about gay people. There were no slurs, personal attacks or hate directed at anyone. The key word here is “unrighteousness,” and Ivey was criticizing the NBA, a basketball organization, for choosing to promote select values and morals that clashed with his own.
In his streams, Ivey talks about Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life,” and he speaks of judgment day. In this light, “unrighteousness” is a scriptural term.
This is the bedrock that it is sin that separates people from God and that it is only Jesus who can offer forgiveness and transformation to anyone who repents. For the record, Ivey extended this standard not only to Pride Month but to other players behaviors and even to Catholicism as a “false religion.”
In short, he wasnt hurling insults. He was making a public, faith-based moral judgment that the celebration of Pride Month is itself “unrighteousness,” just as the NBA was making its own moral judgment.
The difference is that the NBA had the power. But just how clean is this power?
Ivey is a young man who can play basketball. He put the work in. He showed up. He conducted himself with goodness. His team did not cut him for missing shots or missing practice. They cut him for missing the script, for refusing to perform a belief he does not hold or celebrate something that his Bible calls unrighteous.
Meanwhile, we have watched players survive far worse: domestic violence against women, weapons charges, drug use and more. Somehow, they keep their jerseys. Somehow, theyre allowed redemption. But speak a biblical conviction out loud?
This censorship has been slow-boiling America for too long. It does not come with a government seal. It does not announce itself. It comes dressed in the language of inclusion and belonging, and it quietly tells you: You are welcome here, as long as you think like us. The moment you do not, you are not just wrong. You are dangerous. You are detrimental. You are gone. The .
I know this road personally.
I remember being a young pastor when you had to watch every word that came out of
