U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent a letter to Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred questioning whether the League is “inclusive and welcoming” to Christians.
“In June, the Los Angeles Dodgers plan to give a ‘Community Hero Award’ to an anti-Catholic group of activist drag queen performers. The LA Chapter of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence features men dressed like Catholic nuns who mock the faith with the motto ‘Go forth and sin some more!’” Rubio’s office noted.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred questioning whether the League is “inclusive and welcoming” to Christians.
The letter is below.
Dear Commissioner Manfred:
Recently, you stated that Major League Baseball needs to “make decisions that are as inclusive and welcoming to everyone as possible, and keep us as apolitical as possible.” I write to ask whether your League wants to be “inclusive and welcoming” to Christians, and if so, why you are allowing an MLB team to honor a group that mocks Christians through diabolical parodies of our faith.
On June 16, 2023, the Los Angeles Dodgers will host “LGBTQ+ Pride Night” at Dodgers Park. As part of the pre-game ceremony, the Dodgers will give its “Community Hero Award” to the Los Angeles chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a self-described “order of queer and trans nuns” that has mocked and degraded Christians, and especially Catholics, since its founding on Easter Sunday in 1979.
The “sisters” are men who dress in lewd imitation of Roman Catholic nuns. The group’s motto, “go and sin some more,” is a perversion of Jesus’s command to “go, and sin no more.” The group’s “Easter” ceremony features children’s programming followed by a drag show where adult performers dress in blasphemous imitation of Jesus and Mary. The group hosts pub crawls mocking the Stations of the Cross and even the Eucharist, the sacrament that unites more than one billion Catholics around the world.
Dodgers Vice President of Marketing Erik Braverman said that the team’s LGBTQ+ Pride Night is meant to “foster an atmosphere of acceptance for all.” Los Angeles’s many Catholics surely find that claim outrageous, but his words resemble your own closely enough that I am addressing you now to clear up any confusion about where the League stands on this matter.
Do you believe that the Los Angeles Dodgers are being “inclusive and welcoming to everyone” by giving an award to a group of gay and transgender drag performers that intentionally mocks and degrades Christians—and not only Christians, but nuns, who devote their lives to serving others? Do you believe such an award is “apolitical”? Do you believe it is a sound business decision, in a city with more than four million Catholics and countless other people of faith? Finally, setting aside financial considerations, do you believe it is morally right for the most important league of our national pastime to honor a group that mocks religion, and one religion in particular?
Major League Baseball, as a private organization in a free country, can give awards to whatever groups it chooses, no matter how loathsome. But baseball has always been tied to our nation’s values, at the heart of which is faith in God. It would be an outrage and a tragedy if the MLB, in pursuit of modern, secular, and indeed anti-religious “values,” rebuked that faith and the millions of believing fans who cherish the sport.
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