Following suit with the Anheuser-Busch Corporation and retail giant Target—along with other iconic global companies—the Los Angeles Dodgers’ celebration of drag queen “nuns” on “Pride Night” Friday, June 16, met the wrath of conservatives—and thousands of protesters—who simply have had enough.
The Dodgers were set to present to the group, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a Community Hero Award for their “community work” prior to the Dodgers’ game with the San Francisco Giants.
What they encountered was the anger of thousands outside the stadium hours before game time. The ceremony was held before an almost-empty stadium.
Founder of the LA Dream Center, Pastor Matthew Barnett tweeted, “The @Dodgers tonight have made it clear that the faith community means nothing to them. This isn’t questionable judgment, it’s open defiance of their core audience.”
The @Dodgers tonight have made it clear that the faith community means nothing to them. This isn’t questionable judgement it’s open defiance of their core audience.
— Matthew Barnett (@MatthewBarnett) June 17, 2023
The Dodgers did not post anything about the ceremony on the team’s Facebook page.
The repercussions of these companies’ “woke” ideals has been ongoing in recent weeks and months. Anheuser-Busch has lost more than $26 billion in market value since it featured transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney as a marketing partner in early April.
The Daily Mail reported that Robert Barron, a Catholic Bishop in Minnesota and a former auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles, told his 240,000 followers on Twitter that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence “can only be described as an anti-Catholic hate group,” and he urged a boycott of the Dodgers going forward.
Barron tweeted: “I’m a big baseball fan. I’ve even thrown out the first pitch at a Dodgers game. But I’d encourage my friends in LA to boycott the Dodgers. Let’s not just pray, but make our voices heard in defense of our Catholic faith.”
The Daily Mail also reported that “thousands of religious activists held a ‘prayerful procession’ outside Dodger Stadium to respond to a call for a ‘prayerful response to the Dodgers’ godless decision to honor blasphemous, Christ-mocking ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.'”
Catholics for Catholics, the Phoenix-based organizers of the protest, urged participants not to bring children because “We do anticipate hostility from anti-Christian protestors.” However, there was no violence during the event.
One woman even held a blue sign that invoked the name of late Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, a devout Catholic, that read, “Vin is sad.”
Earlier in the week, a group of bishops from across the country asked Catholics to pray that day “as an act for the blasphemies against our Lord we see in our culture today.
“This is not just offensive and painful to Christians everywhere, it is blasphemy.”
The Dodgers’ actions have drawn the ire of several conservative media outlets, but also from popular secular commentators.
Cultural commentator Joe Rogan recently said to his massive podcast audience, “So, we’re seeing that now where we never saw that before, where people are going ‘Enough! Enough! Stop shoving this down everyone’s throat.'” {eoa}
Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
