TBH, part of me is glad that this relic from the 9/11™ days is going away....We already get a nice scoop of compulsory patriotism before the game starts...Enough already.
Right result for the wrong reason.
It was already way over the line when they started punishing people for not-singing.
In 2008,
a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears
were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.
If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic.
Forcing people to stand for God Bless America
isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. ---
John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee --- from this thread