With players citing ‘Jesus’ in rejecting the Pride rainbow, Rays management should be ashamed of the disaster they created.
Cyd Zeigler at Outsports:
The Tampa Bay Rays held the team’s annual LGBTQ Pride Night on Saturday, with many of the players wearing a rainbow on their uniform to signify that LGBTQ people are welcome at the ballpark.
Yet a number of players on the team refused to wear the rainbow or demonstrate support for the community, with a spokesperson saying they did so based on religious objections to homosexuality.
The Tampa Bay Times has identified at least five players on the Rays team — pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs and Ryan Thompson — who rejected the rainbow, and in doing so rejected the LGBTQ community. Raley and Beeks both played in the 3-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
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For starters, no one expects an MLB team to wear rainbows on their jersey during a Pride Night. It’s great if it happens, and it is certainly a powerful statement about the inclusive values of the club; There’s a lot of positive about doing so. Yet it’s not as though the Rays had to attempt to do this. If they weren’t all going to do it, they should have punted. This was, it can be said, an unforced error.
And if the club does decide to wear a rainbow, they need to effectively communicate with player leadership and various levels of management to build a consensus of support and make it clear that everyone’s got to do it.
At least 5 Rays players-- pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs, and Ryan Thompson-- refused to wear an LGBTQ+ Pride patch on their jerseys. These 5 brought shame to the organization for refusing to wear an LGBTQ+ Pride patch by cloaking their opposition to it as a “faith-based decision” and dismissing LGBTQ+ identity as a “lifestyle.”
