Just a small analogy

Since returning from my Australian travels, I've sat down with some of my local friends and spun the following story for them:

A women's basketball game in the WNBA is underway. One player on a team is a lesbian, and is out of the closet about it. Its a public, well-known fact. This same player, lets call her Lauren for the time being, is playing defense. A player from the opposing team goes up for a shot. Lauren jumps up, blocks it, and yells in the other player's face "Get out of my goal, you b**ch!". The opponent, turns and yells back, "F*ck you, you dyke". At this, Lauren goes over to the referee, and complains. The referee reports this to WNBA officials, who bring disciplinary proceedings under the WNBA's code of conduct, and suspend the opponent player for three matches.

I then ask my audience, has justice been served? To render the analogy more exact, I then say that the same pair of players was involved in a spat a few games before, that Lauren was called a "dyke" back then as well (once again, in a situation which she might have provoked), that Lauren instigated at least two other clashes with other players on the same team, and that at various away games, Lauren was subsequently heckled as a "dyke" by the home team's fans (the home team in this case being the banned player's). I then ask again, does the three-match ban make sense.

Interestingly enough, not one single person who has heard this story thinks the three-match ban is justified, and everyone thinks that "if Lauren wants to do a whole lot of trash-talking on the court, she should just deal with it".

Interesting.