Pride Month 2023 has come to a close, and not without controversy at some Major League Baseball stadiums who once again this June celebrated a Pride Night. My advice to all of these MLB teams: Stick to baseball, and please avoid culture and politics, whether from the left or the right or whatever. Just say no. Nearly everyone is begging you. They just want to go to the ballpark and watch a game.
A flashpoint in this latest exhibit of the culture war is what happened with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers, despite vehement protests from fans and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, hosted at Pride Night what Catholic bishops and others referred to as an anti-Catholic hate group. The group dubs itself the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.” These biological men in dresses don female-face (that’s the new blackface) and mock not only women but America’s largest Christian group. They literally pole dance on crosses and hold “Hunky Jesus” and “Foxy Mary” contests.
The Dodgers find this prideful blasphemy just fabulous. They decided to honor the group with the team’s “Community Hero Award” on “Pride Night.”
Vin Scully, Tommy Lasorda, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, and other Dodgers legends of deep faith are rolling over in their graves.
Catholics, Christians generally, and many Americans nationwide were outraged. Why is it necessary for the Dodgers to do this at a baseball game? Of course, it isn’t necessary.
Hence, Catholics protested to the offices of Major League Baseball and its commissioner, Rob Manfred. Boycotts against the Dodgers were organized. Personally, I appreciated those efforts, but the complaints will receive nothing but snickering condescension from the political-cultural revolutionaries. They have a better chance of hitting a Clayton Kershaw curveball.
The reality is that Major League Baseball has made possible the anti-religious bigotry trotted out in high heels and hairy legs at Dodgers Stadium. Every MLB team, with the exception of the Texas Rangers, celebrates Pride Night, if not Pride Month. MLB’s letters that night are LGBTQ. Of course, the “T” in LGBTQ stands for “trans.” The “Q” stands for “queer.”
As for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they are self-identified “queer and trans nuns.” Their order is certainly not recognized by the Los Angeles archdiocese, though it is recognized by the Dodgers’ front offices. That recognition is no surprise. When you indulge the LGBTQ alphabet, you indulge the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It isn’t a big leap from Drag Queen Story Hour at the local library to guys in beards preening and prancing in fishnet stockings at the ballpark on Pride Night.
As columnist Mary Frances Myler of The American Spectator wrote in a piece aptly titled, “My Religion Is Not Your Costume:” “The Dodgers debacle is sad, disturbing, and entirely predictable—as soon as the Dodgers hosted their first pride night, this month’s news was all but a foregone conclusion.”
Precisely.
And again, the Dodgers are hardly alone in throwing opening the gates to this stuff. According to Outsports.com, 29 teams (effectively almost all of them) hosted Pride Nights this June.
And it isn’t just MLB.
ESPN issues an official “Pride Night Guide” for all major sports. And as we saw with professional hockey, where the regular season ends before June, the NHL has forced a Pride Night on fans in months that aren’t Pride Month. Perhaps the Left’s cultural vanguard can create an entire Pride Year, thereby never missing a moment to bring the culture war to your once apolitical sporting event.
For the Left, even sports must be politicized and ideologized. More than that, the Left’s new values must be shoved down your throat for a full month. Gee, even Jesus Christ and Christmas don’t get a full month!
Americans are sick of this. If you want to celebrate pride, fly your flag, but please—I beg you—keep these culture wars out of sports. Give it a break. Let me go to the ballpark in peace.
For American Radio Journal, I’m Paul Kengor. Thanks for listening.