The Chicago Cubs have signed Daniel Murphy, the baseball player who disagrees with the gay lifestyle “100%,” just five days ahead of Out At Wrigley, the team’s annual celebration of the LGBTQ community.

Murphy gave an interview in 2015 when he was playing with the New York Mets, in which he made it clear that he believes gay people are morally corrupt simply because of whom they love. He specifically went after Billy Bean, the gay former MLB player who now works in the league’s front office.

“I disagree with his lifestyle,” Murphy said at the time. “I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual.”

Murphy also said that wouldn’t preclude him from “investing” in Bean, meaning he would tolerate Bean’s shortcomings as a human being. The two have apparently become friendly since his damaging remarks.

What’s most unfortunate here isn’t what Murphy said, but how he has done nothing to improve the situation since. He’s on the record saying he disagrees with the “lifestyle” of an entire class of people with a long history of persecution in sports.

Since then Murphy hasn’t done anything we know of to improve the plight of gay kids in the cities where he lives, hasn’t publicly tried to build more bridges between his Christian belief system about gay people and the community, hasn’t publicly done a darn thing to make sure that gay baseball players feel comfortable in the sport.

I have never advocated for chasing every single Christian person out of sports who “disagrees” with the fact that I’m married to my husband. But when someone decides to publicly elevate the anti-gay environment of the sports world, it’s up to him to fix that. That Murphy hasn’t done that, and that the Cubs would sign him days before Out At Wrigley, is disappointing.

It’s been a rough few weeks for baseball, with anti-gay tweets from players surfacing even as teams hosted Pride Nights. The Cubs have long been held out as an example of LGBTQ inclusion, being partially owned by lesbian Laura Ricketts and playing near Boys Town in Chicago. The Cubs have done a good job over the years waving a rainbow flag. We’ll see if the team is able to get Murphy to make amends, or if he’ll continue to avoid the topic.

Don't forget to share: