Last week, TNT and NBA legend Charles Barkley yelled “f*ck you” to anyone who doesn’t support gays. This week he took a meeting with the Saudi-backed LIV golf league and praised the new league despite the Saudi government’s anti-gay policies.
Barkley attacked those he feels do not sufficiently back gays saying, “If you are gay or transgender, I love you. And if anybody gives you sh*t, you tell ’em Charles says ‘f**k you!”
Charles Barkley: “If you are gay or transgender, I love you. And if anybody gives you sh*t, you tell em Charles says ‘f**k you!’”
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) July 16, 2022
Despite this verbose virtue signaling, days before that, on The Next Round podcast, Barkley was saying that he intended to take a meeting with representatives of the new LIV pro golf league.
Sure enough, Barkley is now out there saying that he doesn’t see why broadcasters can’t do their current duties and broadcast from LIV tournaments.
“In a perfect scenario, I would love to do both,” Barkley told the New York Post. “I don’t know how Turner’s sponsors are going to feel about it. I know there is going to be some blowback.”
Barkley went on to dismiss criticisms of LIV’s connection to the Saudis.
Barkley told the paper, “I told [Gregg Norman], ‘Listen, they are making up words, like ‘blood money’ and ‘sports washing.’ I said, ‘We have all taken ‘blood money’ and we all have ‘sports washed’ something, so I don’t like those words, to be honest with you.'”
“If you are in pro sports, you are taking some type of money from not a great cause,” he said.
Barkley added that he doesn’t worry all that much about where he gets his money.
“I’m a Nike guy, also, so I’m not going to do that thing where I pick and choose what I’m outraged about, where my money comes from. I just don’t think that is fair. I think that makes you a hypocrite,” he said, “And let’s be fair, all these golf tours have played in Saudi Arabia and China. That was my point.”
Sports analyst Charles Barkley makes a play on the 18th green during Round Two of the 2022 American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course on July 9, 2022, in Stateline, Nevada. (Isaiah Vazquez/Clarkson Creative/Getty Images)
These two Barkleys don’t seem to jibe. On the one hand, the Barkley from a week ago was telling anyone who doesn’t support the radical LGBTQ agenda that they are not worthy of consideration.
One might think that would include a nation that punishes gays for being gay. Homosexuals are not accepted under the law in Saudi Arabia. And far from simply ignoring homosexuality, the Kingdom often prosecutes gays to the fullest extent of the law, with punishments including public whipping, beatings, torture, chemical castration, imprisonment, and even execution.
This is the country this week’s Charles Barkley is supporting by praising its new LIV golf league. The two Barkleys seem mutually exclusive.
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