Dodgers Reinvite Drag Performers to Pride Night Celebration

The Los Angeles Dodgers backtracked Monday on disinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence drag troupe from Pride Night festivities, extending another invitation and an apology to the group.

In a statement posted on the team’s Twitter account, the Dodgers said the course reversal came “after much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities” and both discussions within the organization and with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The team will also honor the group on the field during the June 16 Pride Night game against the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers recently gave the sisters a community hero award for the group’s fundraising efforts for causes such as ending breast cancer and AIDS.

“In the weeks ahead, we will continue to work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen the ties that bind and use our platform to support all of our fans who make up the diversity of the Dodgers family,” the team said in the statement.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, based in San Francisco, were founded in 1979 and use satirized religious imagery such as nun costumes and drag to highlight intolerance of different sexualities and sexual orientations. The group has raised more than $1 million in San Francisco alone for various causes and charities.

The Dodgers initially rescinded an invitation to the team’s Pride Night on May 17, saying that day in a statement that the group would not reflect the event’s “spirit of unity” and noting “the strong feelings of people who have been offended by the sisters’ inclusion in our evening.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, had criticized the Dodgers and Major League Baseball for the group’s inclusion, saying in a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence “mocks Christians through diabolical parodies of our faith.”

“Baseball has always been tied to our nation’s values, at the heart of which is faith in God,” Rubio wrote in the letter. “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.”

Other LGBTQ groups, including Los Angeles Pride, subsequently pulled out of the Dodgers’ Pride Night festivities once the team uninvited the Sisters.

A request from The Messenger for comment from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence was not returned.