Should Arizona lose Super Bowl over politics
A few months ago, a group of religious leaders created a petition asking the National Football League to move the 2023 Super Bowl out of Arizona if lawmakers here went ahead with some of the voter suppression bills introduced by Republicans.
The petition reads in part: “As the NFL has recently considered relocating Super Bowl LVII because of COVID-19, we, as faith leaders, ask you to consider relocating Super Bowl LVII from Arizona because of another disease: the disease of racism, and particularly, its symptom of voter suppression.”
That was only a few months ago and the sentiment expressed by the clerics seems, in retrospect, to be fairly mild. Even … quaint.
Because not only has the GOP-controlled Legislature leveled attacks on voter rights, but they’ve also declared war on women, particularly rape and incest victims, as well vulnerable transgender children and their families.
And the legislative session is ongoing.
They’re not done.
In 1990, when Arizona voters failed to approve a proposition to create a Martin Luther King Jr. Day the NFL moved the 1993 Super Bowl, scheduled for Arizona, to Pasadena, Calif.
The state rebounded. Voters eventually passed the holiday and the NFL granted Arizona the 1996 Super Bowl.
There is an argument — and it is a valid one — that moving the Super Bowl would be a big economic hit for the Valley and could impact a lot of people who would not be the NFL’s intended target.
True.
But if the league is what it says it is, if it believes in upholding standards of human dignity, in protecting the vulnerable and preserving individual rights, then how could the NFL not consider moving the 2023 Super Bowl?
How much more damage does the Legislature have to do to those who seek health care, to those who seek support, to those dealing with horrible trauma and to those whose only wish is to exercise their right to vote, before the NFL will act?
A while back, before the bills attacking transgender youth and the victims of rape or incest were signed by Gov. Doug Ducey, who during one interview wouldn’t even admit that trans individuals exist, The Arizona Republic printed an op-ed by Derrick Fiedler, an Army veteran and captain in the Arizona Army National Guard, as well as the father of a transgender son.
Fiedler has been deployed numerous times and served in war zones.
When the rest of us discuss the possibility of the NFL moving the Super Bowl we tend to get lost in the econom
ics, as if – in a discussion like this – money represents the bottom line. Profits. Tax revenue.
It doesn’t.
In his essay for The Republic, Capt. Fiedler points out what is the real bottom line.
He wrote in part:
“I want to remind Gov. Doug Ducey, our lawmakers and fellow citizens that it is not the business of this government, or any government, to legislate the individual life choices of its citizens that do not infringe upon the rights of others to exercise their liberty …
“My child’s sense of who he is does not pose a threat to anyone. It is rather bills such as these proposed that pose a threat to all of us … I’m willing to put my life on the line for the rights and liberties of all Americans, whether I agree with their beliefs and values or not …
“My family has made enormous sacrifices and proven our civic virtue. Now is the time that I’m asking lawmakers to stand up for my rights, my child’s rights, my family’s rights as Americans and human beings who are merely pursuing life, liberty and happiness.”