EDITOR, The Tribune.

I am hoping that Bahamian WNBA player Jonquel Jones’ public swipe at BTC will not cause any significant retaliation from the US towards The Bahamas. That country is currently governed by a far-left president who officiated the same-sex wedding ceremony of two White House staffers, Brian Mosteller and Joe Mahshie, in 2016. The LGBTQ community is backed by Washington, Hollywood, Disney, Silicon Valley and other powerful lobbyists, who have a massive influence internationally. The Bahamas is rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic. The last thing this country needs is the perception that it hates the homosexual community. Many Bahamians are devout Christians who love the homosexual but hate homosexuality. The issue of Jones not getting a lot of endorsements in the US is not unique. During the 2019 NBA Finals in 2019, an average of 15.14 million watched the games, compared to just 231,000 who watched the WNBA Finals in 2018. During the 2019 NBA regular season, an average of 2 million viewers watched the games, compared to just 246,000 who watched WNBA games.

Professional basketball in the US is a male dominated sport with a huge market that many multimillion dollar corporations pay huge sums of money to market their products. That’s why the Golden State Warriors could afford to pay Stephen Curry $45 million in 2021, compared to the $221,000 the highest WNBA earners made that same year, which is $93,000 more than the average WNBA salary. Jones is obviously good at her craft, winning the 2021 Kia WNBA Most Valuable Player award, to go along with her other impressive accolades, such as being named an All-Star four times and being named the 2018 Kia WNBA Sixth Player of the Year and the 2017 Kia WNBA Most Improved Player. With the African-American concept of wokeness being co-opted by the feminist camp in the US, I seriously doubt that her sexual orientation has anything to do with her lack of marketability. The same can be said about the entire WNBA with its 20 percent gay population. Jones plays for the Connecticut Sun with fellow lesbians Natisha Hiedeman, DeWanna Bonner, Alyssa Thomas, Jasmine Thomas and Courtney Williams. Sun coach Curt Miller is also openly gay.

According to the pro-LGBT site, Outsports, 25 percent of the players in the WNBA 2021 Playoffs were gay. The site claimed that Atlanta Dream owner, Renee Montgomery, is also a lesbian, and is married to Sirene Grace. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve is married to Lynx executive Carley Knox. The issue with Jones and the WNBA is that most women in the US aren’t big on sports, as they are with reality TV shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. According to Statista, whereas 39 percent of men surveyed said that they’re avid sports fans, only 13 percent of women said that they are. And while 18 percent of men aren’t sports fans at all, 42 percent of women said that they are not fans at all.

Despite its launch 26 years ago in 1996, the WNBA has failed to resonate with sports fans for any number of reasons, not including homophobia or misogyny. In the June 23 edition of The Nassau Tribune, Jones is reported to have said that she’s conflicted with herself as a lesbian and being a follower of Christ. This conflict arises from an inward conviction caused by our God-given conscience that says that homosexuality is a sin which, left unrepented of, will lead to catastrophic consequences in this life and in the next. That Jones would believe that she can be gay and Christian at the same time is proof that she has a distorted understanding of Christianity. Jones is not a true “follower of Christ.”

According to Romans 8:29-30, God’s goal in redemption is to conform His church to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. When a homosexual comes to Christ, like a Joe Dallas, he seeks to conform to God’s moral laws through the power of the Holy Spirit and godly counseling. The cliche “come as you are” does not mean you persist in indulging in an ungodly lifestyle. Being a Christian means being Christ-like. For a practising homosexual to claim that he is a Christian is as oxymoronic as a serial killer claiming to be a devout follower of Christ.

There are too many biblical passages that speak out against homosexuality for even a casual Bible reader to be uninformed on the matter. Those who would seek to defend the WNBA All-Star forward would only be guilty of impugning God’s character.

Being born and raised on Grand Bahama, Jones obviously knows that most Bahamians are traditionalists who believe in moral absolutes. As an accomplished professional basketball player whom many Bahamian girls look up to, it is disappointing that she has used her celebrity status to promote an unbiblical lifestyle.

It is also disheartening that she would embrace the leftist ideology of the US, while discarding the traditional moral values she received growing up in The Bahamas. Whatever nominal Christianity Jones had on Grand Bahama has been, in my opinion, thoroughly deconstructed by the WNBA.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama

June 23, 2022.