Religious Garb on the Field of Play: Kosher or Not?

Then you’re basically saying that people who follow certain religious laws – laws that require them to wear certain attire – cannot participate in athletics.

It’s all about the way you phrase that really. The way you put it, you’re making any sporting body which demands a certain uniformity which excludes religious iconography (for whatever reason) look like the bad guy. Alternatively though, I would argue that any religion which is so dictatorial about its codes of dress that it doesn’t allow for any practical digression is the repressive party in such a situation.

It comes down to this: sporting uniformity or religious uniformity. In my mind there’s no contest. Sporting uniformity serves a practical purpose and that’s to create equality on the field of play. For me, ideological nullification is as important in this respect as the nullification of any equipment based advantages. On the contrary, religious uniformity serves no practical purpose other than control of individual expression. It fosters divisiveness, it can be used to oppress particular sections of the society it operates through and it’s anti-art. That’s the problem for me.

Oh no. Don’t get me wrong on that. With regard to the particulars of the incident described above, I’m almost more likely to criticize the umpire. Causing a scene at a kids game, for whatever reason, is never, ever kosher regardless of the reason.

However, you wrote about it knowing that this was about more than a little league game, and with the intention of sparking this particular debate. In fact you dedicated the final paragraph to this debate. Please don’t go acting like I, or anyone else, is mad for talking about the very issues you yourself raised.

“I would argue that the presence of religious iconography/apparel similarly contravenes this sanctity of the ballpark.”

“Then you’re basically saying that people who follow certain religious laws – laws that require them to wear certain attire – cannot participate in athletics.

That’s a defensible intellectual position, but I sure wouldn’t want to be the one defending it.

Tell me: Do you feel the same way about the Christian school whose basketball players wear the long pants?

In any case, religion isn’t political (or at least it shouldn’t be). It’s part of the diversity of our culture, just like ethnic diversity. I’m against political messaging in sports because political messaging is, by definition, divisive. I don’t see the same thing about religious diversity. Yossi’s tzitzit aren’t sending any message except that he is an observant Jew. He’s not looking to convert anyone. What’s the problem?”

I agree that it’s a bit silly at the Little League level, but it’s called a “uniform” for a reason. I’m a great supporter of freedom of religion, and if a league is part of a religious organization, such as Christian, Jewish or Muslim schools or organizations, they have some leeway as long as it’s standardized (i.e. long pants, hijabs, etc.). But what if I have an organized baseball team in an established league and one player wants to wear a Sikh turban, another a yarmulka, another can’t wear white, another wants to wear sandals, another a sombrero (we take every type), one won’t touch leather, another insists on sacrificing a goat before each at bat (hey, some guys takes so long at the plate they may as well), one can only run right so he insists on being allowed to run the bases from third to first… you get the point. And at the professional level, definitely not. It’s like that Muslim player who didn’t want to wear the team’s sponsor logo, as it’s a bank and thus against his beliefs. While I respect his devotion, as I see it he has three choices and three choices only. 1: sit out, unpaid until they change sponsors, 2: ask for a trade to another team, or 3: just man up and wear the damn shirt. No one thinks he’s supporting the sponsor; it’s not like you’re forced to do commercials for them or endorse or eat delicious Smithfield Ham if Smithfield Ham is your sponsor, or anything like that. If God strikes him dead I’ll apologize, but somehow I think He won’t, He’s pretty cool about that stuff. But if I were team management there’s no way I’d allow a player to wear a jersey that varied from the uniform regulations set down by the team and league. And no one is saying he can’t wear his religious garb or symbols on his own time or even under his uniform as long as it doesn’t show, he just has to follow the team uniform rules like everyone else while playing.

Along those lines, as previously stated, I’m starting my own religion, Uni-Tarianism. We believe that ugly uniforms are an affront to our faith and, if any of our members are drafted by a team with a hideous uniform (say, the Seattle Seahawks), we demand the right to wear a better one (I’ve always liked the Raiders myself, maybe the Steelers). Or if the logo looks like it was designed by a twelve year old on crack we demand the right to wear a blank one. Sound silly? Not really. All religions are artificial constructs after all; it’s not like God came down and said, “Okay, you guys are going to wear yarmulkas, you guys are going to wear turbans, those guys over there observe the Sabbath on Sunday, you on Saturday, and, before I forget, you can’t eat pork and you guys over there, not only can’t you eat pork but alcohol is out, too”. The bottom line is that it really has nothing to do with religion per se, or anyone’s personal beliefs, it involves following the rules of an organization you opted to join. No one’s saying you can’t participate in athletics, it just says you have to obey the rules of said sport/league.

Meanwhile, I notice you didn’t address my question about the Christian high school basketball players with the long pants.

Sorry. I realise that I just keep ignoring that. Anyway, yes, I do have a problem with it. My problem though isn’t at all with the specific garments being worn, it’s with the reasoning that goes into their being worn. If they wore long pants because the gym they were playing in had heating problems then that’s fine. Wearing them out of “religious modesty” however is once again about making the purity of a sporting contest subservient to an outside dogma.

I get that the Little League story is supposed to be about inclusiveness, accepting diversity etc. The problem I have is that sports already does that, but it does it precisely because things like religion, race, language etc. don’t matter, or at least they shouldn’t. It should be an environment where these things never need to get in the way of the natural bonding that occurs anyway. As I have said, sport is humanistic, the criteria for judgement are based in the real world: are they good at the sport? are they good teammates? do they have a good attitude? are they just generally fun to play with? All religious iconography/garments do in regard to this dynamic is introduce tokens of discrimination. Inclusiveness is great, but the ideal should be that children are inclusive because they grow up seeing others as people in themselves, not merely as token representations of otherness that they’re socially obliged to acknowledge specifically because of that otherness.

I would just like to take it back to a point you made earlier, that religion isn’t (or shouldn’t) be political. But religion was politics before politics as we know it now existed. We’re not that far removed from a time when monarchs ruled with divine right and the Pope was the most powerful person in the western world. I live in Ireland, a country which went through almost a century of virtual theocracy. Growing up here, and studying its history has demonstrated to me the dangers of assuming religion is above the level of public scrutiny. If anything, religion, by dint of the fact that it is not answerable to democratic processes and yet commands greater obedience than most governments, deserves a greater public suspicion than most areas of life. For example, it is thoroughly indefensible for anybody sympathetic to women’s issues to see the Hijab as anything other than a blatant abuse of people’s spiritual vulnerability to dehumanise women and ensure they remain subservient to men. It’s not exactly a huge leap of the imagination to begin seeing where similar rules in other religions serve similar agendas of control, power and even money.

Finally, you keep insisting that anybody taking a stance against the presence of religious garb in sports is somehow taking a stab at young Yossi Lipskier, which is a cheap rhetorical trick I’m sure you must acknowledge. The thing is, to assume that Yossi is somehow capable of acting completely of his own volition, in full freedom from outside influences in relation to his religion is ridiculous. When I was eight I wouldn’t have dreamed of not going to church or somehow even saying something bad about it. It’s not the heroic tale of a kid who stood up for his conscience, rather it’s the unfortunate tale of how a child, turned into a religious pawn by being dressed in symbols he as yet lacks the critical faculties to truly understand, became another victim in the onslaught being waged by intellectual, cultural and social luddites on modernity.

Grumpy much, Paul? Can you express a point without being belligerent?

I don’t think Orthodox Jews are weird or have weird rituals. To each their own. And I understand the point just fine. Hence, why many Samoans wear their hair long. However, that is NOT “who they are.” It’s a choice, based on their culture. The Samoan’s skin color is not a choice.

What this is is the equivalent of telling a black child he can’t wear an African kente stole during the game, or at graduation, etc.

What a kid adorns himself with… “a knotted ritual fringe” … is a choice. A yarmulke is a choice. Long pants – choice. Headdress – choice.

Not easy choices for some, or ones without consequence, for sure. But they’re without question CHOICES. Comparison with skin color? You know better than that.

PS, go ahead and take my comment about “blousing/stirrups” out of context… just a simple example. More relevant to college or pro coaches. And relevant in the context of the way John Wooden left no question about details/teamwork unattended.

The point is that a team setting is a learning opportunity. It certainly goes both ways. Religion does not need to be bullet-proof.