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Dodgers Slammed For Ditching Drag Charity At Behest Of Bigots

Dodgers Slammed For Ditching Drag Charity At Behest Of Bigots

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
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Why is Pride Night inclusion being decided by anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives?

rachelkiley

The annual Pride celebration at Dodgers Stadium has swerved towards major controversy after the Los Angeles team bowed to pressure from conservatives and disinvited a well-known charity organization.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been around for decades, utilizing drag and street performance to raise awareness for LGBTQ+ issues and funds for their communities. They are so respected and beloved in their work that they were set to receive a Community Hero Award at Dodgers’ Pride Night this June — but found themselves disinvited from the event altogether instead.

The pivot took place after conservatives, largely led by Florida’s Marco Rubio, threw a temper tantrum claiming the group “intentionally mocks and degrades Christians” and denouncing the event as non-inclusive.

For some baffling reason, the Dodgers decided to listen to the voices of people who actively work to silence and dismiss the LGBTQ+ community — and who don’t even live in Los Angeles — about an event intended to do the opposite of that, and announced that the Sisters would no longer be welcome at Pride Night.

The decision was made “in the spirit of unity,” they claimed, and cited the “strong feelings of people who have been offended by the sisters’ inclusion in our evening.”

If the Dodgers thought the backlash from bigots was bad, the anger from the LGBTQ+ community they disregarded immediately proved worse.

Angelenos who were otherwise excited to attend Dodgers Pride Night called the organization out, pointing out that this bowing to a hateful agenda masked with fake concern is actually the opposite of inclusivity and unity.

And a major blow came a day later in the form of LA Pride denouncing the decision and withdrawing their usual partnership with the Dodgers for the event.

“Pride is a fight for equality and inclusion for the entire LGBTQ+ community and we’re not going to stop now,” they said in a heavily praised statement.

The chain of events set off here could end in a poorly attended or outright canceled Dodgers Pride Night, which would ultimately give the bigots what they want. But at the same time, the local LGBTQ+ community was backed into a corner by the Dodgers’ initial capitulation to uninvested antagonistic parties — accept the exclusion of a valued group or stand up for what’s right.

Clearly, many have chosen the latter.

The Sisters have also expressed their frustration with the situation at hand, blaming “hateful and misleading information from people outside [the Dodgers’] community, who target not only the LGBTQ++ community but also women’s autonomy over their bodies, people and communities of color, and other faiths and nationalities.”

“The Sisters are not anti-Catholic, but an organization based on love, acceptance, and celebrating human diversity,” their statement reads. “Do not let people who hate us all decide that some parts of our community are more tolerable than others, that some shall be seated at the table while others are locked out.”

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Rachel Kiley

Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.

Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.