Jaden Ivey, a young guard for the Chicago Bulls, has been cut by his team. The reason given was “conduct detrimental to the team”. 

The immediate cause was a series of Instagram videos in which Ivey criticised the NBA’s Pride Month campaign and spoke openly about his Christian faith.

In one video, Ivey said: “They proclaim Pride Month and the NBA does, too… They say, ‘Come join us for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness.’”

He also reflected on a personal turn to faith: “I’m not the J.I. I used to be. The old J.I. is dead. I’m alive in Christ, no matter what the basketball setting is.”

The Bulls did not identify any specific breach of any specific standard. Ivey pushed back on the framing, asking: “Why didn’t they just say, ‘We disagree with his stance on LGBTQ?’”

“What did I do to the team? What did I do to the players?” he added.

It is a valid question. The NBA has imposed modest penalties on players facing allegations of domestic violence, firearms offences and drug abuse, but moved swiftly to terminate a contract over religious speech. The disparity deserves scrutiny.

The parallels with Israel Folau are hard to miss. In 2019, Folau lost his Rugby Australia contract after posting a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 6 (saying that homosexuals, among many others, will not inherit the kingdom of heaven) on Instagram. In both cases, we see a pattern emerge: A professional athlete, a Christian view expressed publicly, and a swift and punitive response from the employer.

Reports suggest Ivey was vocal about his faith in the locker room, and the Bulls’ stated rationale suggests that it was religious expression, not professional conduct, that cost him his job.

HRLA sees this pattern in every sphere. Matthew Squires lost his job after expressing Christian and politically conservative views. Dr Jereth Kok faced professional discipline. A Victorian university student was pushed out of his campus accommodation for much the same reason.

Whether in an NBA locker room, a corporate office, a university residence or a medical tribunal, the message to Christians is the same: hold these beliefs privately, because expressing them publicly will cost you.

HRLA’s position is that freedom of religion, speech, and conscience must extend beyond the private sphere. A society that permits employers, regulators, and institutions to penalise orthodox religious expression has already compromised on those freedoms while claiming to uphold them.