Tennessee Republican tries to depants a ref at HS game, gets booted

They said they wanted their political agendas and sports to be separate. They never practice what they preach.

In the latest example of “Republicans are always hypocrites,” Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Tenn.), the third-highest ranked Republican in the state’s House of Representatives, had to apologize for embarrassing himself and his party after he was kicked out of a high school basketball game. In an era in which everything is recorded on cell phones, an elected official tried to pull a referee’s pants down in public.

You know you acted like an idiot when you have to include Jesus in your apology.

“For years, I thought how wrong it is when a parent loses their temper at a sporting event,” he wrote. “It’s not Christian and it’s not mature and it’s embarrassing to the child have always been my thoughts. Unfortunately, I acted the fool tonight and lost my temper on a ref. I was wanting him to fight me.

“. . . I’ve never really lost my temper but I did tonight and it was completely stupid of me. Emotions getting in the way of rational thoughts are never good. I hope to be able to find the ref and ask for his forgiveness. I was bad wrong.”

If a story involving sports and Republicans in Tennessee inserting themselves in matters that make them look even dumber sounds familiar, it’s because it happened last winter. Last February, Tennessee Republicans sent a letter to all presidents and chancellors of public Tennessee colleges and universities asking them to stop players from kneeling, as if they were committing crimes.

“To address this issue, we encourage each of you to adopt policies within your respective athletic departments to prohibit any such actions moving forward,” read the letter, signed by all 27 members of the Senate Republican Caucus, including Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge.

All of this started after the East Tennessee State men’s basketball team kneeled during the anthem. It’s believed that the team’s white head coach was fired because he supported his players. He was eventually replaced by a Black coach that “fit the bill.”

We haven’t heard anything else about them kneeling .