World News
Dodgers’ Pride Night returns Friday, seemingly without controversy
LGBTQ+ Pride Night at Dodger Stadium is returning this week, seemingly without all the controversy surrounding last year’s event.
This year’s festivities will take place before and during the Dodgers’ game against the Kansas City Royals on Friday night. Fans who purchase a Pride Night ticket pack will receive an LGBTQ+-themed Dodgers jersey.
Pregame activities will include a live DJ, line dancing lessons and a vogue-off dance contest in the center field plaza and an Outloud Sports kickball game on the field.
Activities of a different sort accompanied last year’s Pride event at Dodger Stadium.
A couple of hours before the June 16 game against the San Francisco Giants, roughly 2,000 demonstrators marched along Stadium Way to Vin Scully Avenue. The protest was in response to the Dodgers’ plan to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — a satirical performance and activist organization made up of queer nuns in drag who are considered blasphemous by some Christians — with the team’s Community Hero Award as part of the Pride Night activities.
The Dodgers faced backlash after they said they would no longer honor the satirical LGBTQ+ group. But they reversed course and reinvited the Sisters.
The Dodgers confirmed to The Times that no Community Hero Award will be given out this year.
Last year’s protest was organized and promoted by a group called Catholics For Catholics. There is no mention of Pride Night protests on the group’s website this year. The organization did not immediately respond to questions from The Times.
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights advocacy group ran radio ads a year ago calling for a boycott of the Pride Night game because of the plan to honor the Sisters. A Catholic League representative told The Times that no such plans were being made at this time regarding Friday’s game.
Also during the week leading up to last year’s Pride Night, Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez announced that his service hours before the night’s events would be dedicated “for healing due to the harm caused by the Dodgers’ decision to honor a group that intentionally denigrates and profanes the Christian faith.” No such announcement appears on the Archdiocese of Los Angeles website this year. The group did not immediately return a call from The Times.
Thousands of revelers took to Hollywood on Sunday morning as the annual Pride parade was set to step off on Sunset Boulevard.