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The Los Angeles Dodgers faced significant backlash last week for not inviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to their annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night, but changed course Monday. The team apologized to the group and offered a new invitation to attend the festival, which will take place at their home game on June 16. The sisters accepted the invitation.
The Sisters, who describe themselves as “a cutting-edge gay and transgender nuns order,” use humor and religious imagery to draw attention to sexual intolerance. The Dodgers will award the group with the Community Hero Award, the same award that was previously slated for.
“After thoughtful feedback from a diverse community, candid conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, and generous discussion with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Angeles Dodgers have announced that the LGBTQ+ member Sisters “We offer our deepest apologies to the Of Perpetual Indulgence “community and their friends and family,” the team said in a statement.
why it matters
The Dodgers, who convened Jackie Robinson in 1947 to consolidate Major League Baseball, have long considered themselves champions of inclusion, and their annual Pride Night is a top priority event for the team. The decision to withdraw the invitation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence following complaints from politicians and religious groups quickly met with backlash. LA Pride, which runs the LA Pride Parade & Festival, pulled out of Dodgers events in protest, along with groups such as the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California.
The LGBT Center went so far as to insist that the Dodgers cancel the event if the sisters were not allowed to attend.
All of this comes less than a year after the team took the big step of admitting past failures by inviting the family of first-ever openly gay major leaguer Glenn Burke to last year’s Pride Night. It was realized. Burke did little to hide his sexuality, but he was traded to the Oakland Athletics after he rejected the team’s $75,000 honeymoon offer on the condition that he marry a woman. Although he was once a promising future, his career declined rapidly and he died of complications from AIDS in 1995.
what’s next
LGBT center announced soon He announced that he would be joining the Sisters for Pride Night, keeping his promise to return to the event if the team changed their decision. The group thanked members of the Los Angeles community who took part in the protests and said it could learn a lot from the unfolding situation.
“Last week’s debacle highlights the dangerous impact of political tactics by those seeking to fan the flames of anti-LGBTQ prejudice at a time when our rights are under attack,” the group said in a statement. Stated. “We must continue to stand together as a community to defend the rights and perceptions of LGBTQ+ people in Los Angeles and beyond.”
LA Pride and the ACLU have not yet announced whether they will participate.
In a statement from the club announcing the reinvitation of the Sisters, the Dodgers acknowledged that they still have work to do to repair their relationship with the community.
“In the coming weeks, we will work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen our bonds, and extend our platform to support all the fans who make up the diversity of the Dodgers family. We will take advantage of it,” it said in a statement.
Scott Miller Contributed to the report.
