The ongoing Los Angeles Dodgers saga with their scheduled June 16 Pride Night and honoring of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence took another turn Monday when star pitcher Clayton Kershaw told the Los Angeles Times that he disagreed with the team’s decision to honor the Sisters.
Kershaw said that he approached the team about accelerating an announcement of a relaunch of the Christian Faith and Family Day as a response. That announcement came Friday as Kershaw tweeted, “Excited to announce the relaunch of Christian Faith and Family Day at Dodger Stadium on July 30th.” The Dodgers last held such an event in 2019 and Kershaw is “determined to make it bigger and better than it was before COVID.”
The Christian Faith and Family Day announcement came four days after the Dodgers reinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to the team’s Pride Night celebration on June 16. In a statement, the Dodgers offered an apology to the Sisters, saying that “in the weeks ahead, we will continue to work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen the ties that bind and use our platform to support all of our fans who make up the diversity of the Dodgers family.”
The Los Angeles chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were set to receive the team’s Community Hero Award before the team’s Pride Night game on June 16. However, ultra-conservative influences outside the Dodgers and Los Angeles community, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and The Catholic League president and CEO Bill Donohue, caught wind of the honor and expressed outrage, claiming the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s use of drag attire mixed with religious imagery is offensive to Catholics. In actuality, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are civil rights activists, committed to public service to marginalized communities.
The Dodgers then capitulated and rescinded an invitation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Dodgers’ decision was widely criticized and other LGBTQ+ groups soon announced they would not participate in the Dodgers’ Pride Night, the 10th such celebration for the team. On May 22, the Dodgers changed course, offered an apology to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and extended an invitation to participate in the team’s Pride Night.
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Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young Award winner and likely first-ballot Hall of Famer, has been open about his faith during his major-league career ― including authoring a book titled “Arise: Live Out Your Faith and Dreams on Whatever Field You Find Yourself.”
“I don’t agree with making fun of other people’s religions,” Kershaw told the LA Times. “It has nothing to do with anything other than that. I just don’t think that, no matter what religion you are, you should make fun of somebody else’s religion. So that’s something that I definitely don’t agree with.”
Contributing: Mike Freeman, Steve Gardner and Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY
