Baseball: America’s pastime? Not in Los Angeles, where the L.A. Dodgers have invited a radical group of homosexuals and cross-dressers to the team’s 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night in June.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a nonprofit group unaffiliated with any religious organization. Founded in San Francisco in the late 1970s, it now has chapters worldwide. According to the group’s website, they raise money to support so-called “marginalized” communities. Others describe them as drag-queen street performers. Their shocking routines are anything but family-friendly.
They advocate every “woke” issue, from abortion to juvenile gender mutilation, and their name, garb, and behavior openly mock the Catholic Church. Yet the Dodgers plan to honor them with a Community Hero Award.
It’s an about-face from the team’s decision last week to disinvite the activist group in response to severe criticism from religious circles.
The advocacy group CatholicVote first raised objections. It condemned the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as an anti-Catholic troupe of men who mock the faith with grotesque costumes and the motto “Go forth and sin some more!” CatholicVote also noted that the baseball team is owned by a lesbian couple, former tennis stars Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss.
Others, including Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, joined CatholicVote in calling on the Dodgers to retract their support. He wrote:
It would be an outrage and a tragedy if the MLB [Major League Baseball], in pursuit of modern, secular, and indeed anti-religious “values,” rebuked that faith and the millions of believing fans who cherish the sport.
— U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio Statement on Dodgers Pride Night
The Dodgers responded to such pushback by withdrawing their invitation, only to face wrath from left field. The New York Times reported that “LA Pride, the organization that runs the LA Pride Parade & Festival, pulled out of the Dodgers’ event in protest, as did groups like the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The LGBT Center had gone as far as to insist that the Dodgers cancel the event if the Sisters were not allowed to attend.”
We only wish they would cancel it — for good.
However, in a show of shameful cowardice, on Monday the Dodgers apologized to the deviant group and re-invited them to “receive the gratitude of our collective communities for the lifesaving work that they have done tirelessly for decades.”
Is it a case of two strikes and you’re out for the Dodgers? Americans are calling for boycotts, pointing out that the team has, overnight, become the Bud Light of Baseball.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco tweeted: “So we now know what gods the Dodgers admin worships. Open desecration & anti-Catholicism is not disqualifying.” He ended with the biblical admonition “Gird your loins,” indicating that Catholics are facing a spiritual battle.
Stepping up to the plate, CatholicVote is launching an ad campaign “against the team across Los Angeles and in game broadcasts.”
