Los Angeles Dodgers reinstate LGBTQ group for Pride Night award

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Monday that a satirical LGBTQ group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will again be welcome back at the team’s annual Pride Night, nearly a week after the team rescinded their original invitation.

“We have asked the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to take their place on the field at our 10th Annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night on June 16,” a statement from the team said. “We are pleased to share that they have agreed to receive the gratitude of our collective communities for the life-saving work they have tirelessly done for decades.”

The group will receive the Community Hero Award at a ceremony before the Dodgers’ home game against the San Francisco Giants.

After “many thoughtful comments”, the team also apologized to the group and the LGBTQ community, friends and family.

The Sisters, a primarily male group who dress as nuns, is a charity, protest, and performance group founded in 1979 in San Francisco. His Los Angeles chapter was to receive the Community Hero Award.

That followed a backlash from some Roman Catholics and conservative politicians, including Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who accused the group of mocking nuns and the Christian faith.

The group denied that it was anti-Catholic. On its website, the group said it uses “irreverent humor and wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that fetter the human spirit.”

However, the Dodgers’ decision sparked its own backlash from LGBTQ groups across the country, with some deciding to pull out of Pride Night.

On Saturday, Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken tweeted an invitation for the Sisters to join her at Los Angeles Angels Pride Night on June 7.

In their new statement, the Dodgers said they will continue to work with “LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen the ties that unite, and use our platform to support all of our fans who make up the diversity of the Dodgers family.”