Do you hate Alabama more than any other team in the world? Or Ohio State? Or Notre Dame? Well, guess what, you have a new least favorite team: the Liberty Flames.
Liberty, an Evangelical Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia, has announced that it is moving up to the Football Bowl Subdivision — the highest level of college football.
BREAKING NEWS@NCAA Approves @LibertyU’s Waiver Request for FBS Reclassification Process
Press Conference at 5 p.m.#GoFlames pic.twitter.com/Gj5jK1Ul1o
— Liberty Flames (@libertyflames) February 16, 2017
Liberty might seem small and innocent, but Liberty is very, very bad. Here’s what the school has done in the past few years:
- It hired former Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw just months after McCaw was forced to resign from Baylor for helping to cover up a sexual assault scandal.
- Its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., has said and done a number of terrible things, including:
- There should be guns allowed on campuses so “we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”
- The tape of Trump bragging about sexual assault was a set-up by his political rivals.
- Pulled an anti-Trump story about sexual assault from the campus newspaper.
- It forced its students to go to a Ted Cruz campaign rally, with a $10 fine if they did not attend.
- It brings bigotry into the curriculum, teaching classes decrying the “homosexual lifestyle.”
Going back through these old LIberty textbooks and hoo boy. This is from a required class unit called "Myths of the homosexual agenda" pic.twitter.com/6QxXbsFdUS
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) February 1, 2017
- It also teaches the Bible in a super defensive way.
- In an incredibly ironic turn of events, Liberty will play Baylor in its first football game of next season, just as Baylor is coming off the sexual assault scandal allowed to happen under McCaw’s watch.
This isn’t a liberal/conservative thing. Liberty is an affront to human decency, religious freedom and support for the oppressed. Falwell Jr. is too insane for the far-right publication Red State. The school proved when it hired McCaw that it will do anything to become more visible in the sports world, and that’s what this move is about.
Liberty stands for bigotry and it empowers those who hurt others. Now, you have a least favorite team that deserves that distinction.