The Los Angeles Dodgers deserve an award for courage.

Think about the last month for the club and its executives.

First they invited the drag nuns Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to be honored at their Pride Night on June 16. After rescinding the invitation due to loud pressures from various Catholics and political conservatives — something the club has admitted was a mistake — they then re-invited the Sisters to be honored.

That alone took an incredible amount of fortitude and courage. A major very public organization admitting a very public mistake and then even more publicly correcting it — That doesn’t happen very often.

The club knew it would catch hell and damnation for re-inviting the philanthropic Sisters to be honored for Pride Night, despite the incredible work the organization has done in the community.

They knew that organized forces on the Right would try to destroy them due to the optics of drag nuns and the national assault on drag from far too many conservatives.

Because of the good, humanitarian work the Sisters have done for the LGBTQ community over the last 40+ years, and because they had made an original commitment to the group, the Dodgers have stood by their original decision.

That choice has come under fire from powerful people, including former Republican Vice President Mike Pence, former Democratic Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Marco Rubio, numerous conservative and religious voices, and even some MLB athletes, just to name a few.

These are powerful, influential voices.

The Dodgers weren’t looking for a fight when they chose to honor the Sisters. They were selecting an organization that has meant the world to countless underserved communities they have tended to. Their intentions were nothing but good.

Yet anti-gay forces predictably made it all about themselves, ignoring the great work of the organization and seizing on a window of opportunity to — they had hoped — get a win over the LGBTQ community.

They lost.

When the fight was brought to them, the Dodgers — save for a brief hiccup — refused to back down. Team leaders like SVP Erik Braverman, team President Stan Kasten and EVP Lon Rosen have chosen to embrace the LGBTQ community for Pride Night, just as they will embrace Christians on Faith Night.

Conservative members of the media like Ben Shapiro have made this issue a flashpoint in their battle against the community. They have talked about it throughout the last month.

What have the Dodgers done? They’ve worked with law enforcement to make sure that the LGBTQ community is safe from harm on Pride Night. Rainbows will be everywhere in Dodger Stadium.

That Pride Night will, again, be the largest in professional sports, anywhere in the world in 2023.

The LGBTQ community needs to respond in kind. We need to show support in numbers at Dodgers Pride Night in a way we have not before.

A ticket to Dodgers Pride Night means so much more this year than it ever has before.

Everyone should be able to understand the apprehension of some, particularly Catholics, about seeing drag queens satirically dress up as nuns. It can be jarring for some, and that single aspect of this is understandable.

But when you, as Washington Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle pointed out, dig into the actual work of the organization — caring for the sick and dying — the choice is a no-brainer. The Sisters deserve the recognition, and the Dodgers deserve support for sticking to their original decision to honor them.

If any Catholic seriously wants to question why the Sisters dress as they do — as they service a community shunned but the Church — they should look hard and introspectively at a very long history within the Catholic Church of vilifying the LGBTQ community and literally leaving us to die.

I’m looking forward to celebrating the LGBTQ community with the Dodgers at Pride Night on June 16, and honoring the team for their courage.

I hope you’ll be there too.

You can buy tickets to Dodgers Pride Night here. Outsports is a partner with the Dodgers for the event.

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