Organizations are calling for major sporting events to be moved out of Georgia after the state passed a controversial voting law a few days ago.
Tony Clark, executive director of the MLB Players Association, said players are ready to discuss moving the annual All-Star Game in July, scheduled to be played in Atlanta, according to the Boston Globe.
The National Black Justice Coalition, a Black and LGBTQ civil rights group, said in a statement that golfers should refuse to play in the Masters, an annual tournament at Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Course, unless the law is repealed.
“Georgia’s new law restricting voting access is designed to turn back the clock on civil rights, and return Black and poor and already disenfranchised voters in Georgia to second class citizens,” Johns said in a statement provided to Golfweek. “This is an unacceptable attack on our democracy and companies that operate in Georgia must speak out against this restrictive law.
“The PGA Tour and Masters Tournament have both made commitments to help diversify golf and address racial inequities in this country — and we expect them to not only speak out against Georgia’s new racist voter suppression law — but to also take action.”
President Joe Biden has called the Georgia bill “un-American” and “sick” in a news conference on Thursday.
“You don’t need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting,” Biden said.
If Major League Baseball were to move the all-star game, it would mimic how the National Basketball Association moved its own All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina in 2017 in response to laws that discriminated against the LGBTQIA+ community.
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MLB’s All-Star Game is scheduled to be played on July 13th.