Baseball backlash

Following months of controversy, the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday honored the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—a group of LGBT drag queens who dress as nuns—with a Community Hero. The award came as part of the team’s Pride Night festivities before its home game against the San Francisco Giants.

Video of the pregame ceremony, held about an hour before the first pitch, showed a largely empty Dodger Stadium. Outside the stadium, however, thousands of people were protesting.

“We’re very angry that the Dodgers invited this group that mocked our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” one demonstrator at the Catholic-organized protest told KTLA.

The ceremony featuring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came after the Dodgers ballclub spent weeks flip-flopping on its decision to honor the group. By doing so, it sent a message that it was willing to ditch Catholic and other Christian fans in pursuit of LGBT accolades. But the public backlash over the matter has shown many fans have had enough—and some are already bidding the team goodbye.

Historically, the Dodgers have been baseball’s pioneers of inclusion: They did, after all, open the major leagues’ doors to black players by signing Jackie Robinson in 1945. The team was also savvy enough to market itself to Southern California’s large Latino community by broadcasting games in Spanish immediately after moving west from Brooklyn in 1958.

It might seem surprising, then, that the Dodgers sent an exclusionary message to Christians and Catholics by honoring a pro-LGBT group that lewdly and derisively mocks their values.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence wear kabuki-style white makeup, frequently adopt sexually suggestive stage names, and perform stripper-style pole dances involving actors mimicking Jesus on the cross. The Sisters’ motto: “Go forth, and sin some more.”

Beyond dressing in nun costumes and makeup, the two drag queens who represented the Sisters in Friday’s pregame ceremony refrained from engaging in any incendiary conduct.

LGBT activist Gerald Garth (left) stands with two members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as they are honored during Pride Night prior to Friday’s game. Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

In the two months leading up to the game, the Dodgers had invited the Sisters, rescinded the invitation after Catholic groups expressed their outrage, then re-invited the Sisters when Southern California’s LGBT community pushed back.

Ultimately, the team pledged in a press release to “continue to work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen the ties that bind and use our platform to support all of our fans who make up the diversity of the Dodgers family.”

But the Dodgers appear to have placated the wrong group: According to Smithsonian magazine, more than half of the nearly 4 million fans who attended games at Dodger Stadium in 2015 were Latino. And the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture has reported that approximately 68 percent of the nearly 5 million Latinos in Los Angeles County identify as Catholic.

Acting in damage control mode, the Dodgers attempted to satisfy Christian fans by dubbing their July 30 game against the Cincinnati Reds—a Sunday game—“Christian Faith and Family Day.”

The Dodgers even trotted out their prominent Christian star, pitcher Clayton Kershaw, to promote it. Kershaw, incidentally, had denounced the Dodgers’ decision to hail the Sisters: “I just don’t think that, no matter what religion you are, you should make fun of somebody else’s religion,” the three-time Cy Young Award winner declared.

By the time they announced they were bringing back Faith and Family Day, however, the Dodgers had already lost many of their faithful followers.

Among them was Marylee Shrider of Bakersfield, Calif. A supporter of the Dodgers for more than 40 years, she and her husband Danny have renounced their fanship. No longer will they be driving 90 miles south to watch their favorite former team in its home ballpark, sporting Dodgers gear, or displaying Dodgers souvenirs in their home.

Shrider believes the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence embody the very bigotry they claim to oppose.

“The Dodgers intentionally and deliberately, with thought, aligned themselves with a hate group,” Shrider said. “I’m not going to call them anything else.”

As much as she loved being a Dodgers fan, Shrider considers herself “a follower of Christ first.”

“[The Sisters] base their whole existence on ridiculing the Catholic church,” she said. “I’m not a Catholic, but I am a Christian, and this is an assault on people of faith.”

Bishop Robert Barron, a high-profile Catholic leader, agrees.

“If this group dressed up in mockery of a Muslim cleric or imam and desecrated the Koran, what would the reaction be?” Barron said in a video posted on social media. “But somehow, attacking Catholics in the most disgraceful way is OK.”

Following a National Hockey League controversy over players who refused to wear LGBT Pride–themed jerseys, Major League Baseball has taken defensive action, quietly banning ball teams from wearing Pride-themed patches, caps, or jerseys. MLB did, however, give special permission for the Dodgers and Giants—who play in cities well associated with LGBT advocacy—to wear rainbow patches on the Dodgers’ Pride night.

Regardless, permanently losing die-hard fans like Shrider may hurt the Dodgers’ bottom line.

“What person of faith could look at that and say, ‘I’m welcome here?’” Shrider asked. “I’m not going to any games this year. I’m done with the Dodgers.”