LA Dodgers Flip-Flop on Including Nun-Mocking Drag Group in Pride Night Festivities
Outcry forces MLB club to cancel future show, only to reinstate it after objections
Despite outrage by some fans, the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team has reaffirmed an invitation to the drag ensemble Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to perform at its Pride Night game on June 16.
The Dodgers announced the drag group’s appearance, then canceled the appearance after public pressure. The MLB team now has canceled the cancelation under more public pressure, and the performance is back on.
And as part of the celebration of LGBT lifestyles, the team plans to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence with a Community Hero Award, their original press release from the Dodgers organization said.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are men portraying nuns in heavy mime makeup, sometimes scantily clad in overtly sexual outfits.
They dress up as sexual interpretations of figures from the Christian faith to raise money for LGBT causes, including “gender-affirming” clothing and resources for teens who say they’re transgender, the group’s website and social media pages show.
Drag performances have been lauded as a way to celebrate “love, self-expression, and performance.”
But the planned Pride Night celebration has drawn scorn from some, including the Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who railed that the “homosexual bigots are known for simulating” sex acts “while dressed as nuns.”
And U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has denounced the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as “blasphemous,” saying the group has “mocked and degraded Christians.”
He’s asked the Dodgers not to celebrate the group.
Trending: Transgender Marketing
The Dodgers follow a long list of corporations marketing their brands recently with support for transgenderism despite a growing backlash against the trend.
Bud Light saw its brand topple when it put the face of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a can of the beer. Mulvaney became famous celebrating his first “365 of girlhood” on social media.
Adidas infuriated customers with an ad campaign featuring a man modeling a woman’s swimsuit.
And Target’s stock plummeted after it launched a line of clothing for children with LGBT messages. Some of the line’s swimsuits designed for girls have pockets to hold tucked-away male genitalia.
The Sisters focus heavily on reaching teens.
As far back as 1997, the Sisters renewed a “commitment to queer youth” by hosting “Promstitute, an alternative queer youth prom where the youth were encouraged to wear very short skirts and drink to excess,” according to the group’s website.
The group, which has hundreds of members worldwide, vows on its website to “promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.”
Its motto is: “Go and sin some more.”
It’s a satire of Jesus’s words, documented in The Bible. To a woman caught in the act of adultery, Jesus advised, “Go and sin no more.”
Supporting Sex Change for Children
In addition to a drag performance by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, there are plans for the Dodgers Pride Night to spotlight DJ Bowie Jane, lesbian tennis stars Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss, homosexual Dodgers player Billy Bean, and pop singer David Archuleta.
The Dodgers organization has said it will donate half the proceeds from Pride Night to the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the team announced in a written statement about the event.
The LGBT Center celebrates and promotes the “kink community” and child sex-change procedures.
Further, “they like to feature a ‘Condom Savior Mass,’ one that describes how the ‘Latex Host is the flesh for the life of the world,’” Donohue wrote in a press release.
Rubio sent a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, asking the Dodgers not to celebrate the Sisters.
“Major League Baseball, as a private organization in a free country, can give awards to whatever groups it chooses, no matter how loathsome,” Rubio wrote.
“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.”
Activism in Drag
The Sisters see themselves as activists on a range of topics.
On at least one occasion, group members protested outside Capitol Christian Center, a Sacramento church whose motto is “to live as Jesus among the broken.”
The church’s leader, Rev. Rick Cole, describes himself as “an active ally for social justice, taking a hands-on approach to issues of racial reconciliation and homelessness in his community as well as serving countries all around the world by leading teams through global missions work.”
The Sisters call his church a “gospel of hate.”
Every year, the Sisters hold a “Hunky Jesus” and “Foxy Mary” competition.
In 2023, a “Jesus” with Playboy Bunny-style male disciples won the contest.
Events like these raise money for charity programs, including “Navigating Consent,” a workshop for “survivors and transgressors” to learn sexual consent skills.
The group also supports Valid USA, an organization dedicated to giving free breast binders to transgender-identifying California students; Maya’s Magic Shop, a witchcraft shop dedicated to connecting “humanity to otherworldly entities effortlessly building portals through candle color therapy”; and many other pro-LGBT projects, according to the group’s website.
The Sisters also visit hospice facilities, lecture students about the benefits of safe sex, and do “very intense one-on-one sessions,” according to the site.
Many Sisters take obscene stage names that parody common names of nuns in religious orders.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence but hasn’t received a response.
Dodging Controversy
The Dodgers surrendered to public pressure and announced the cancelation of the group’s performance on May 17.
“Given the strong feelings of people who have been offended by the Sisters’ inclusion in our evening, and in an effort not to distract from the great benefits that we have seen over the years of Pride Night, we are deciding to remove them from this year’s group of honorees,” the Dodgers wrote in a press release.
The Sisters responded with a press release defending their organization, saying they are a charitable group and not anti-Catholic.
“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,” the group’s press release reads.
On May 22, 2023, the Dodgers apologized and announced they’d restore the Sisters to the Pride Night lineup.
“After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBT community and their friends and families,” the team wrote in a press release.
The organization praised the Sisters for the “lifesaving work that they have done tirelessly for decades.”
“The Dodgers have always championed diversity and inclusion as core values, and we’re honored to showcase our dedication to fostering an inclusive environment both on and off the field during our 10th annual LGBT Pride Night,” said Erik Braverman, Dodgers senior vice president of marketing, communications, community relations, and broadcasting.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Dodgers but didn’t receive a reply.
The Sisters celebrated with a triumphant press release on their website, proclaiming they believed the baseball team’s apology was “sincere.”
“In the future, if similar pressures from outside our community arise, our two organizations will consult and assist each other in responding, alongside our colleagues at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and others from the LGBT community, now more closely tied with the LA Dodgers than ever before,” the Sisters organization wrote.
Dodgers player Clayton Kershaw is an outspoken Christian. In his 16 years in professional baseball, he has made multiple all-star teams. He’s also won the Gold Glove Award and the pitching Triple Crown.
On his Twitter biography, he has The Bible verse Colossians 3:23—”Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Kershaw for comment, but he has not replied.
