Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — What a trainwreck. Whatever you think about the value of the public works of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence group, what’s happened in the last week is nothing short of a PR nightmare for the team. There is literally no way that this can end well for the Dodgers.
First some background. The Dodgers have been having a LGBT+ “Pride Night” for quite a while now. And it’s been a pretty positive experience for everyone involved, I’d imagine. I was there at the last one, and even bought the ticket package and gave away the Pride jersey to one of my LGBT friends after the game. The event created no more public controversy than UCLA Night or Mexican Heritage Night or Military Appreciation Day. It was just another theme night honoring a certain segment of the Dodgers’ diverse fan base. And it would have been the same this year as well, were it not for the ill-advised decision to invite a self-described “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns.”
Because the Sisters raise money for charity (about $40,000 a year it seems), the Dodgers wanted to include them in the Pride Night pre-game festivities and it blew up in their faces. Florida Senator Marco Rubio wrote an open letter to Rob Manfred. Catholic League head Bill Donohue made the media tour, the archdiocese of LA made a statement and the Dodgers felt the heat. They rescinded the invitation, only to get a different backlash from the LGBT community, which barely 48 hours later, brought on this bit of wishy-washy nonsense.
Look, I get it. If you’re not Catholic or Christian, the hijinks of this group (having a “sexy Jesus” contest, basing a pub crawl around the Stations of the Cross) are all in good fun. But wasn’t that the argument of the folks who are doing the Tomahawk Chop and had Chief Noc-a-homa doing a Native War dance on top of the Braves dugout? “Just all in good fun, don’t be so serious.”
Whether or not this group is anti-Catholic is in the eye of the beholder I suppose, but that is exactly why the Dodgers shouldn’t have gotten within ten miles of them. Why bring that on yourselves? Surely there are plenty of other good charitable organizations doing good work in the LGBT community who have no such baggage that could be easily honored at the Stadium. The fact that nobody in the Dodgers PR department saw this as a red flag of any kind is what concerns me. I’m sure the Sisters aren’t exactly sitting around waiting to be acknowledged by the LA Dodgers. The Dodgers brought this completely on themselves.
But even if it was absolutely the right move to honor this group on Pride Night, to invite, then disinvite, then re-invite them shows the worst kind of value-less corporate capitulation. If you think they should be invited, stick by your invitation. If you don’t, don’t invite them in the first place. It’s really that simple. To let public opinion sway you one way or the other is just a bad look.
And who suffers? The players themselves, who are sure to be asked about it as the event draws closer. Some of these guys probably couldn’t care less, but putting committed Christian players on the Dodgers in the position of having to defend this is really not cool of the team.
During my day job, I’m in contact with many many actual nuns, members of an order called Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ. They’ve all taken a vow of poverty. Literally all they do is pray, attend mass, and help the homeless, going out into the streets to talk to, minister to, and aid these denizens of tent villages on skid rows across the US. That’s it. And what are the chances that these “sisters” will be honored before a Dodger game?
I think we all know the answer to that question.
