If you don’t stop and think about it, I suppose banning rainbow tape from NHL games and practices might sound trivial. It’s not. It isn’t really about tape with colorful stripes.

This is a very big business tallying the numbers, and deciding there’s more money to be made when there’s nothing in the sport that might make haters even slightly uncomfortable, not even a small statement for human rights wrapped around a hockey stick.

If their customers are OK with this, and appeasing the haters doesn’t damage the bottom line, other big businesses will make similar moves, the haters will get louder, and it’s not like they’ve been whispering until now.

This is the goal of the right-wing’s so-called ‘culture war’ — they want it easier for the haters to speak out, and more dangerous for gay and trans people and allies. The haters want gay and trans people in the closet, and eventually in boxcars, and the NHL wants the haters as happy customers.

This is way bigger and scarier than banning rainbow tape.