What It Takes to Call Out Unrighteousness | Daniel McCoy

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What does it take to correctly call a beloved cultural custom “unrighteous”? To call a lewd TV show everyone’s watching unrighteous. To call a dishonest yet winning style of leadership unrighteous. To call what everyone else calls “sexual liberation” unrighteous.

What does it take?

I would have answered that you need a couple things: an accurate moral compass and a lot of courage. That’s true and if you stop reading now, those aren’t bad takeaways. This week, I learned about a third thing that helps. If you have it, it can sharpen your compass and fuel your courage.

This week, the Chicago Bulls let guard Jaden Ivey go from their team. The reason? According to the headlines, it was due to “anti-LGBTQ comments.” Like most headlines, the explanation was misleading.

The reason was actually the word “unrighteousness.” In an Instagram video, Ivey used the word three times to describe having to celebrate LGBTQ+ in the Bulls’ Pride Night. Here was the offending clip:

“They proclaim Pride Month in the NBA. They say come join us for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it. They show it to the world. To celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness.”

It’s ironic that as of 2025, the NBA had fined 9 players a total of $616,000 in the last 14 years for anti-gay slurs—no firings though. Ivey’s was no slur, just an ethical statement about Pride Month, but apparently it crossed a line beyond fines. He’d called a cultural custom “unrighteous.”

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