Debating Pride Night Is Our New National Pastime

By Jon Friedman, May 31, 2023

All rise for the new National Pastime: coming to terms with the implications of Pride Night in the sports ecosystem. 

The conservative media and their readers accordingly have the challenge of showing that they are not anti-LGBTQ while not wanting to alienate a vocal voter bloc. They struggle to maintaining the loyalty of sports fans who may not feel comfortable with the progress that society has made in this area. 

It is a delicate balancing act and given the proliferation of such special so-called “pride nights” in sports, the furor is sure to intensify. 

The Dodgers Controversy

The latest frontier involves the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the most hallowed franchises in celebrating both sports excellence and societal trailblazing. The Dodgers recently announced that a satirical LGBTQ+ organization called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will once again be invited to the team’s annual Pride Night after the Dodgers pulled their original invitation on May 17. 

The controversy had expended beyond sports and southern California. The pushback came from conservative Roman Catholics and politicians including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. They felt that the Sisters mocked nuns and Christian faith.

Taking Their Place

“We have asked the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to take their place on the field at our 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night on June 16th,” a team statement said. “We are pleased to share that they have agreed to receive the gratitude of our collective communities for the lifesaving work that they have done tirelessly for decades.”

The organization will receive the Community Hero Award in a ceremony prior to the first pitch in the Dodgers’ home game versus the historical rival San Francisco Giants.

The official announcement went on to say: After “much thoughtful feedback,” the team also apologized to the group and the LGBTQ+ community, friends and families.

The Sisters, which consists largely of men who dress up as nuns, is a philanthropic, protest and performance group that was founded in 1979 in San Francisco.

The media furor has remained intense and has played out in public, upping the stakes for all involved. The Dodgers hoped to burnish their reputation for showing an allegiance to the sprawling Los Angeles societal community – while not looking weak or cloddish. 

Skeptics will accuse the Dodgers of caring primarily about wanting to protect the franchise’s public image as a responsible member of society and not for worrying about taking a stand, one way or the other.

Clayton Kershaw’s Protest

As if the Dodgers couldn’t face a more awkward public debate, the team has found itself in the awkward position of having to deal with the protests of one of its own players, and one of its greatest pitchers of all time.

The Associated Press and ESPN reported this week that Dodger starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw, a star on the team for more than a decade who appears to be a sure-fire inductee someday into the Baseball Hall of Fame, said he had issues with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the team’s annual Pride Night but stressed that his point of view did not extend to the LGBTQIA+ community. “This has nothing to do with the LGBTQ community or Pride or anything like that,” Kershaw was quoted as saying.

Kershaw told the Los Angeles Times on May 29 that the Dodgers’ decision to reinstate the Sisters sparked him to ask the Dodgers if they planned to “expedite the announcement that the team was bringing back Christian Faith and Family Day later this season,” according to the Associated Press report.

Discussing his decision to speak up, Kershaw said, “Yes, it was in response to the highlighting of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (by the Dodgers).”

Kershaw had noted on Twitter on May 26 that the Christian Faith and Family Day would be held on July 30 as the Dodgers hosted the Cincinnati Reds.

Signature Events

Pride Night – the practice of sports teams showing their support for the LGBTQ movement – has become a signature event on the American sports scene. The franchises and stadiums hope that these gestures will show that they recognize the place of the LGBTQ+ community and all people who understand the importance of these occasions. 

Skeptics, meanwhile, will shrug and insist that the teams are merely scheduling this kind of event that they know will spark favorable publicity and represent a harmless, inexpensive way to boost one-off attendance figures for that particular evening.

Sports has become increasingly politicized in recent decades, as professional athletes feel free to use their celebrity status to make statements about society. The move by the Dodgers represents a test for just how tolerant and forward thinking do the teams and leagues now want to appear.

Exactly how progressive do sports teams feel comfortable being in 2023? They will have to figure it out.

The case of the Dodgers serves as a microcosm of society. Yes, this is a “sports story” because the angle focuses here on a sports team. But this issue is not merely confined to athletes, teams and leagues. This surely touches on corporations, which also struggle to present a progressive image to prospective customers – while not alienating the conservative elements in their universe.

Taking this controversy to a larger arena, we can expect to see politicians making antisocial statements before the 2024 election and then reversing course, in efforts to build bridges to voters.

But politicians will have no more luck than the Dodgers in trying to thread the needle.

And whither the conservative media, which have already shown their hand. Nobody should expect these journalists to do the limbo in an attempt to make everyone happy.

Historically, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a long and, well, proud history of acting as societal trailblazers, which makes the team ever-more sensitive to whispers of acting badly. 

In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier when he started for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the franchise’s previous home. (The Dodgers moved went in time for the 1958 season). The Dodgers have long received praise for this daring move.

The team has also had a place in the history of gay athletes. Glenn Burke, who played for the team in the 1970s, is regarded as the first baseball player who came out.

Burke did so in 1982, after the outfielder had retired from the Major Leagues. (Speaking of Burke, he has yet another special credit: he is believed to be one of the originators of the high- five in sports, dating back to his playing days.)

The Dodgers franchise has a lot to be proud of. It would be unfortunate if the team now gained a reputation for ham-fisted behavior in 2023.

Jon Friedman wrote MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman’s Media Web column from 1999 to 2013 and has taught classes in journalism and other subjects at Stony Brook University. for the past decade. He is the author or co-author of three books and has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal.com, The New York Times Sunday Business Section, The New York Post, Our Town and the websites of such publications as Esquire, Psychology Today and Time. 

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