Wash. Times compares illegal immigration to “sneaking into Phoenix Suns games without tickets”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From a May 6 Washington Times editorial:
Imagine thousands of people were sneaking into Phoenix Suns games without tickets. The management would quickly crack down on the “undocumented spectators.” Security personnel would engage in “profiling” - singling out younger male fans wandering around without obvious seats. They would want to see some “papers” - ticket stubs. Those lacking documentation would be deported out of the arena, or, in some cases, arrested.
Suns owner Robert Sarver seems to think that the rules that apply to his for-profit local monopoly should not apply to the state of Arizona. After a unanimous team vote held at his house, Mr. Sarver ordered his players to wear “Los Suns” jerseys during last night's Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals. The move is an explicit protest against the new immigration law, which Mr. Sarver says calls into question “our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law.”
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So while millionaire athletes become walking billboards for a political cause, the state of Arizona might want to review the terms of its relationship with the Suns. If Mr. Sarver wants to use his team to push a political agenda, perhaps citizens can push back. Imagine Phoenix residents channeling the spirits of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. by turning up en masse to Suns games, sneaking in without tickets, demanding special services like free food and access to box seats, overtaxing arena security and ruining the game for the people with tickets. They can call it a celebration of diversity.