Pride and prejudice

June is, of course, Pride Month, when our LGBTQ compatriots celebrate being here and being queer, and Major League Baseball teams all have Pride Night on their June promotional calendars. Well, most do. For some reason, the San Diego Padres held theirs in May. And for a quite different reason, the Texas Rangers don't have one at all. (The Rangers also have a commemorative statue of a pro-lynching segregationist at their ballpark, so they've got a particular vibe to them.)

As I understand it, the whole concept of Pride Month and, by extension, Pride Night—aside from the usual crass commercial reason of selling tickets—is a form of celebratory protest. The gay community has been historically marginalized, to put it mildly, and pride parades and the like have been a way to both enjoy a party amongst themselves and to prominently remind the rest of us that they exist, they're not going away, there are a lot of them, and they're really not so scary so why all the fuss? As time has gone on and social acceptance improved, the emphasis has shifted toward the celebration side of things and been less focused on the protest angle, but here in the first third of 21st Century there's sadly still a need for both.

Anyway, the point is that while most(?) of us enjoy things like Pride Nights for what they're intended to be, celebratory events akin to similar promotions like Native American Heritage Night or Gonzaga University Alumni Night or even Little League Day, where a subset of the crowd is recognized for their community within the greater community, some don't.

Two recent Pride Nights highlight the disparity: June 15 in Chicago and June 12 in San Francisco. The crowd at Wrigley Field was into it, as evidenced by this presumably straight guy enjoying a truly great night from center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, #4, who hit for the cycle (in reverse order, no less—homer-triple-double-single) in the Cubs' win:

The Cubs also rainbowified their light structures, had the Rainbow Dads family throw out the ceremonial first pitch, had the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus on field for a number, and promoted local LGBT-owned businesses. Near as I can tell, the players were enjoying or at the very least not bothered by the whole deal.

On the other hand, the San Francisco Giants' Pride Night was marred by a number of Giants players protesting against it. And by extension—no, check that, not by extension, directly—protesting against the people in the stands, in the city, watching on television, anywhere on Earth, basically, who didn't share their homophobic bigotry.

Pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, Sam Henges, and Ryan Walker, each of whom appeared in the game, either eschewed wearing the team's rainbow-logo Pride caps or defaced them with a bible verse (Genesis 9:12-16) they see as "reclaiming" the symbol of the rainbow from the gay community and for Christianity. "The verse says the rainbow is a symbol of God's covenant to us and us as believers stand firm in that,” Roupp said, not knowing his grammar was as flawed as his selective reading of the verse in question. Henges was more straightforward, if you'll pardon the unfortunate pun. "I don't morally support it," he said.

Manager Tony Vitello said nothing, allowed the pitchers to express their contempt for their fellow human beings with no consequence, but the Commissioner's Office—under pressure from media backlash, not out of any sense of justice—issued a warning to those players in a weak attempt to stop future offenses. I say it was only under pressure from bad PR because this exact thing has happened before and they did nothing. Last year it was Dodger pitcher and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw protesting with the same bible verse. Fellow Dodgers Blake Treinen and Alex Call refused to wear the rainbow caps, no consequence. A few years back, several Tampa Bay Rays tore the rainbow patch the team wore on their Pride Night off their uniforms and all Rays manager Kevin Cash had to say was "we want to support our players that choose to wear [the patch] or choose not to wear [it]."

Aside from Henges, who seems quite willing to be upfront about his bigotry, all of the players involved in these protestations offered up nice-sounding verbiage to excuse their behavior as being about love and faith and Jesus, either obtuse to the fact that they were full of shit or knowing it full well.

The Genesis verse these people cite concludes with this, as the Word of God: "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind." They seem to be conflating that "covenant" with a hateful behavior never evidenced or referred to by this Jesus fellow they claim to revere and giving no thought to the "all living creatures" aspect of it.

As for the Giants, the team issued a statement that fell flat. "We understand the choice by individual players has caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that." OK. What are you going to do about that? Anything other than this non-apology apology?

Measures of inclusion like Pride Nights, symbols of progress and recognition of wrongs done in the past, these sorts of small things aid in making our society more enlightened, more civil, and bring us closer to that "more perfect union" we like to tout every July 4th. They hurt no one, they damage nothing. Roupp, Henges, and company, by making a stink about it, hurt their fanbase and their team's reputation, alienate people they work with, and gin up hatred among others to perpetuate the problem. Giants broadcaster (and former pitcher) Mike Krukow summed it up thusly: "What makes San Francisco so great is the acceptance of others—ethnicities, opinions, cultures—and that extends to the gay community. I would just hope [the players] would understand the demographic of San Francisco and respect people for who they are. What you do to your uniform, that has weight to it. You can offend people. And why would you do that?"

So, what do you say, America? Let's be more like the Cubs and the Wrigley dude with the sign, and less like the Giants' pitching staff. Can we do that?