I read your first post on the new policy before I had had a chance to process it. I haven't seen anything to dispute any of it, or what you have posted since. And that's on top of stuff I thought about in terms of forced expressions of piety that go back to Locke and are the foundations of our way of life.Ignoring the incorrect legal assertion, the problem here is not a general issue of a business enforcing established behavioral norms. The NFL did not have a policy against political protest. They did not have a policy about standing for the national anthem. Protests began targeting a specific cause, which was police brutality and state violence against innocent black civilians. The NFL has, in response, enacted a targeted policy to stifle that expression, and more or less only that expression.
Falling back on their right to dictate workplace norms is a craven unwillingness to recognize what they are doing. What they are doing is targeting black player speech and deliberately silencing it because white members of their audience are offended that black people don't want to be killed by the police anymore.
Intent matters. This rule has a clear intent. That intent is unmistakably and unquestionably racist. If you are ok supporting a league that has declared that they are operating under the flag of racism, that is ok. It doesn't make you racist. It does mean that you have decided that your personal entertainment matters more than opposing the virulent disease that is racism in this country.
I think I'm out. We'll see what happens when season comes around... but this is bad. Like, actual bad.