LOS ANGELES (LifeSiteNews) — The Los Angeles Dodgers have canceled their decision to grant a sacrilegious anti-Catholic hate group a “Community Hero Award” due to outrage over the plans.
The Major League Baseball team had announced in a press release its plans to honor the “Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence” — a mock order of “queer and trans nuns,” that is, men dressed in drag and “habit” who routinely ridicule the Catholic faith — during the team’s 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night.
The men in drag revel in acting out in public often sexualized parodies of holy events sacred to Catholics, such as the birth of Christ and the Way of the Cross, and work, in their words, to “expiate stigmatic guilt,” which involves other burlesques in protest of traditional Christian morals on gender and sexuality. They have also fundraised for HIV/AIDS research, the Gay Games, and a proposition to legalize medical marijuana.
After a flurry of outrage over the Dodgers’ plans to award the anti-Catholic group, including from Catholic Vote and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, team management decided to remove the Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence from this year’s Community Hero Award honorees.
“Given the strong feelings of people who have been offended by the sisters’ inclusion in our evening, and in an effort not to distract from the great benefits that we have seen over the years of Pride Night, we are deciding to remove them from this year’s group of honorees,” the team stated in a press release.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 17, 2023
Reactions on social media to the decision to cancel the award were mixed. Some applauded the move and others viewed it as a capitulation to “bigots.”
An attorney and professor shared that he was “thrilled” the group was removed from the event, while another commentator objected that the so-called “sisters” “are nothing but a kind, charitable group that create safe spaces,” adding, “If you’re going to cater to bigots cancel the whole LGBTQIA night. You’re just being performative.”
CatholicVote had launched a campaign protesting the planned award and highlighting the hateful nature of the group, with Catholic Vote president Brian Burch writing a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred slamming the decision as “contributing to the climate of increasing hostility against Catholics.”
Senator Rubio also wrote a letter to Manfred decrying the move as an “outrage and a tragedy.”
“Dodgers Vice President of Marketing Erik Braverman said that the team’s LGBTQ+ Pride Night is meant to ‘foster an atmosphere of acceptance for all,’” Rubio noted in his letter.
“Do you believe that the Los Angeles Dodgers are being ‘inclusive and welcoming to everyone’ by giving an award to a group of gay and transgender drag performers that intentionally mocks and degrades Christians — and not only Christians, but nuns, who devote their lives to serving others?” Rubio wrote.
The senator went on to question whether such a move is a “sound business decision” in a city populated by over four million Catholics, and aside from “financial considerations, whether “it is “morally right for the most important league of our national pastime to honor a group that mocks religion, and one religion in particular.”
Burch pointed out in his letter that the move was “particularly galling” in the wake of the recent passing of Vin Scully, a legendary Dodgers broadcaster and devout Catholic.
“Vin and other members of the Dodgers family, including countless fans, would surely be appalled that the team they love would dishonor their faith in such a manner,” Burch wrote.