No Football Playing Here

Television ratings are up and merchandise sales are booming, but longer-term trends don’t look as rosy for football. 

According to a new Bloomberg Politics poll, 50 percent of Americans say they wouldn't want their son to play the sport and only 17 percent believe it’ll grow in popularity in the next 20 years.

These are grim numbers for a sport that’s seeing an onslaught of negative attention, including a parade of National Football League players accused of abusing their wives or children; a team name so offensive that some news organizations refuse to print it; and, perhaps most troubling to parents, the growing body of evidence that repeated blows to the head can cause long-lasting brain damage.

The finding suggest that, over the course of time, football could go the way of boxing, a marquee American sport in the early part of the 20th century that declined amid a similar set of dynamics: 

“I just think it has become too dangerous,” said Vince Vlasuk, 38, a consultant in Strongsville, Ohio, who is pushing his young boys to play soccer instead. 

“I don’t think they have the equipment they need to protect themselves, particularly at the junior high and high school level.”

Democrats were slightly more likely to oppose their children participating in the game than Republicans, 52 percent to 47. 

Even though the National Football League has courted women as viewers, 58 percent of female respondents say they don’t want their boys playing football compared with 41 percent of men.

Another bright spot for the sport among the under-35 set: They are almost twice as likely as older respondents to believe the sport will grow in popularity over the next twenty years. 

And there’s still the 43 percent of respondents who say they want their kids to play the game, including Tim Sacre, 58, of Tooele, Utah. The retired miner is raising two grandchildren. 

“It’s a popular sport,” he said. “It’s fun for them.” Safety, he said, is a “concern," but his young charges participate in another hair-raising activity. “One races motorcycles too, so football is nothing,” he said.

Not Being Gay... is normal?

Sean Hannity (above, but just who is he?) reacted to child abuse charges against Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings by expressing concerns that the government might start interfering with what parents can teach their children. 

Specifically, he’s concerned that parents will be prohibited from teaching their kids that “being gay is not normal.”

“This is my problem with liberals. Here’s where my fear goes,” Hannity said. “You guys want to tell parents what they can and cannot do — for example, is it going to become illegal if a parent teaches the politically correct view that being gay is not normal?”

“My problem here is, do parents have the right to instill their values in their children? My problem is we send these kids off to school. Maybe they’re taught that God is dead, or maybe they’re taught that it’s okay to have sex. Maybe they’re taught values that contradict what the parents are teaching, whatever it happens to be — you know Heather has two mommies, daddies, roommates — that’s the government circumventing parental values,” he explained referencing the children’s book about same-sex families.

“Look, some people disagree on the gay lifestyle because of religious views. If they teach their kids, is the government going to come in one day and say, ‘That’s wrong, that’s immoral’?”

Hannity similarly responded when New Jersey passed a law protecting minors from ex-gay therapy, asking, “Is there freedom of religion anymore, or is that banned in New Jersey?” 

He has also previously attacked individuals like Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN and former Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, for “promoting homosexuality” in schools.

Note:  One of the great benefits of being born and/or living in this country is that we can enjoy freedom of speech as guaranteed under the US Constitution.  This free speech presupposes that we have free thoughts as well which may/may not be the case.  

Why?  

If we try to convince our children how to think or what to think at a very early age then that is more than like what they will do and how they will think for the rest of their lives.  

And, those would be our views not their views. 

We should teach them how to think and to look at all sides of an issue equally and then make up their mind…