A number of players for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team have angered LGBT+ supporters by refusing to wear Pride logos on their uniforms.
The snub took place on Sunday when the Major League Baseball (MLB) side was holding an annual “Pride Night” celebration at Tropicana Field for Pride Month.
At least five players chose not to wear special Pride uniforms, the Tampa Bay Times reported, citing “religious beliefs” and a difference in “lifestyle”.
Choosing to speak on behalf of the players who refused to wear the Pride logos, Jason Adams told the Times: “A lot of it comes down to faith, to like a faith-based decision”.
“But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe — not that they look down on anybody or think differently — it’s just that maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus,” he said.
Adam continued by explaining that it was a “hard decision” but “[Jesus] encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like [he] encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage. It’s no different.”
While “more than half” of players participated in the “Pride Night” by wearing rainbow colours, the decision taken by the five Tampa Bay Rays pitchers angered many online. Some of whom said the rebuttal undermined the team’s support of the LGBT+ community.
“Will someone please show me the Bible passage that says ‘Thou shalt not wear a rainbow on thou’s clothing’ “, wrote LGBT+ sports journalist Cyd Zeigler.
He continued: “The club has placed itself at ground zero of a political battle despite widespread LGBTQ support on the team.”
Will, a sports fan, wrote: “Everyone is missing/ignoring (more likely) the greater point that these players went out of their way to rip these colors off their jerseys when showing the tiniest bit of support for a historically hated on group doesnt hurt anything”.
The Pride uniforms featured a rainbow-coloured Tampa Bays Rays logo on the side’s cap and jersey sleeves, and were not dissimilar to pro-LGBT+ uniforms worn by other sports teams within and outside the MLB.
In a statement, Tampa Bay Rays president Matt Silverman said “Our Pride Nights continue to grow both in terms of visibility and participation” and that “By doing this, we extend an invitation not just for this game but for all of our games that the LGBTQ+ community is invited, welcomed and celebrated.”
The Pride Night celebration was followed by a defeat for the Tampa Bay Rays, who were playing the Chicago White Sox. The other players were identified as Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs and Ryan Thompson, and it was not clear if there were others who chose not to wear the Pride uniform.
The Tampa Bay Rays have long shown support for the LGBT+ community and were the first professional sports team to support same-sex marriage with an amicus brief in the Supreme Court, the report said. Florida’s biggest baseball side has also more recently joined the “It Gets Better” campaign to fight bullying in youth sport.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis criticised the team on Friday for advocating for tighter gun control following the deaths of 19 children and two teachers in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and said he would withhold millions of dollars in funding for a training ground.
He told reporters: “Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”
The Republican this year signed into law a controversial piece of legislation banning LGBT+ issues from being discussed in Florida’s classrooms – widely known as “Don’t Say Gay”.
The Independent is the official publishing partner of Pride in London 2022 and a proud sponsor of NYC Pride.