After over a year of speculation as to why a rising star in women’s soccer would suddenly refuse to play for Team USA, North Carolina Courage defender Jaelene Hinkle is finally coming clean:
God made her do it.
Hinkle, 25, drew fierce scrutiny from women’s soccer fans and Christians alike after she declined a two-game call-up from the United States Women’s National Team last spring. The opportunity would have taken her to Norway and Sweden in June. Awesome, right?
Right. Until USA Soccer announced it would be honoring the LGBTQ community for Pride Month with rainbow uniforms for their June games, the same month that Hinkle was set to be part of the 26-person roster.
Hinkle had already served the national team eight times in two years, so when the women’s team announced that the Texas Tech alum was removing herself from the roster, it didn’t take long for assumptions to fly.
The suspicions weren’t unfounded. Hinkle has always been open about her faith and her conservative “values.” After the Obergefell decision came down in 2015, granting marriage equality to the entire nation, Hinkle was really torn up about it.
She also took to Instagram, posting an image of the Human Rights Campaign’s red equal sign converted into a cross. She pirated the marriage equality movement’s “Love Wins” slogan and proselytized, imploring her fellow Christians to not “throw a tantrum over what has been brought into law today.”
After her withdrawal from the June 2017 roster, Hinkle was never called up again, and avoided the issue—until now. On Wednesday, The 700 Club, that bastion of hard-hitting news on the Christian Broadcast Network, published an exclusive interview; despite being filmed last June, the video was not released until now, just days before 2018’s Pride Month celebrations begin.
In the clip, Hinkle dives deep into her faith, her soccer career, and her medical struggles, one of which she claims was cured through prayer. At the very end, she addresses her “personal reasons” for skipping her call-up.
“I just felt so convicted in my spirit, that it was not my job to wear this jersey. And I gave myself 3 days to just seek and pray and determine what He was asking me to do in this situation.
I’m essentially giving up the one dream little girls dream about their entire life, and I’m saying no to it. It was very disappointing.
I think that’s where the peace trumps the disappointment, because I knew in my spirit that I was doing the right thing. I knew I was being obedient, and like, just because you’re obedient doesn’t make it easy.
If I never get a national team call-up again, like, that is just part of his plan, that’s okay. And maybe this is why you were meant to play soccer: like, just to show other believers to be obedient.”
Unfortunately for Hinkle, her “obedience” is being interpreted a little differently by the soccer and LGBTQ communities, which overlap significantly. In the wake of the video’s release, Hinkle was in Oregon with her team, the North Carolina Courage, as they played the Portland Thorns. Hinkle encountered boos, fans waved their rainbow flags, and some members of the Thorns fanbase even found the time to make protest signs.
Her coach and at least one teammate, however, are standing by her, saying Hinkle’s intolerance for the LGBTQ community “doesn’t affect the team,” which has the best record in the league right now.