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A member of the Tampa Bay Rays said he and several teammates had made a “faith-based decision” not to wear rainbow-colored logos on their uniforms during Saturday’s Pride Night home game, which recognizes the LGBTQ community.
Most Rays players, according to the game’s accounts, wore special uniform designs that had a rainbow pattern on the “TB” of their hats and above the sun glare logo on their right sleeves. It is reported that the team that organized Pride Night for several seasons, but previously did not include changes in uniforms, gave players the opportunity to show logos or go with the usual look.
Among the rays that rejected the rainbow logo, according to the Tampa Bay Times, were pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beaks, Brooks Reilly, Jeffrey Springs and Ryan Thompson. As Reilly and the Beaks came into the game, losing 3-2 to visiting Chicago White Sox, Adam was given the opportunity to explain why he and the others gave up.
“A lot of it comes down to faith, liking a faith-based decision,” said Adam, 30, in his fifth season in the major leagues. “So this is a difficult decision. Because in the end, we all said we wanted them to know that everyone is welcome and loved here. But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys have decided that it’s just a way of life that maybe – not that they look down on someone or think differently – we just might not want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who encouraged us to live a way of life that would refrain from this behavior, just as [Jesus] encourages me as a heterosexual man to abstain from sex outside of marriage. It is no different.
“It is not reprehensible. Don’t look down, ‘Adam continued. “We believe in the way of life that he has encouraged us to live for our own good, not to keep it. But again, we love these men and women, we care about them and we want them to feel safe and welcome here. ”
The Tropicana Field event in St. Petersburg was scheduled to take place near the beginning of the Month of Pride. In a statement last week, President Biden said that “the onset of dangerous anti-LGBTQI + legislation has been introduced and adopted in states across the country.”
The native state of the rays entered the headlines earlier this year when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation called “Don’t Say Gay” by some. “Parents must be protected from schools that use classroom instruction to sexualize their 5-year-old children,” DeSantis said in a statement.
Critics said the bill on parental rights in education, which bans LGBTQ issues in classrooms from kindergarten to third grade and includes restrictions on older students, has deliberately vague language designed to marginalize, stigmatize and silence LGBTQ people.
Rays center Kevin Kirmeyer, who reportedly wore a rainbow-accented uniform on Saturday, said after the game that the Pride Night event “shows that we want everyone to feel welcome and included when you come to Tropicana Field.”
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“My parents taught me to love everyone as they are,” said the 32-year-old Kirmayer (via mlb.com). “Go live your life. Whatever your preferences, be you. ”
Rays manager Kevin Cash said on Saturday that he “certainly” hopes that the internal division has not arisen from the discussion about LGBTQ issues that has taken place among his players. The manager, in his eighth season with Tampa Bay, claims that his players have begun to respect different points of view.
“First and foremost, I think the organization has done a really good thing to have Pride Nights, supporting our gay community to go out and have a good night at the stadium,” said Cash (via the Associated Press). “I am impressed that our players have had these conversations and we want to support our players who choose to wear or not to wear in the best way possible.”
In an online exchange with media personality Keith Alberman, who challenged Adam’s characterization of Jesus’ teachings, the pitcher tweeted: “I promise you that my intention was never to embarrass anyone. My greatest desire is to love and live like Jesus every day. ”
In addition to special uniforms, the rays celebrated the Night of Pride by handing out miniature flags of pride and donating to a local inclusive health and wellness organization.
The franchise’s previous gestures included becoming one of the first sports teams in 2015 to sign a newsletter with a friend of the Supreme Court who supported same-sex marriage and honored the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando during Pride Night 2016. .
“This is an important evening for our organization and an opportunity for us to emphasize inclusion in general,” said team president Matt Silverman. “We lived as a community through the photos at Pulse Nightclub and we understand the importance of nights like this to signal to our fans and our community an open invitation to come and enjoy baseball, and I know our overall message is for inclusion.
The team recently spoke on the issue of gun violence. Following the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uwalde, Texas, the broadcasters issued a statement last month saying they “can’t stand still” for such episodes and vowed to donate to a national gun violence prevention organization.
A few days later, DeSantis vetoed $ 35 million in a state spending plan that would go to a youth sports complex advertised as a possible future Rays spring training facility. The gun governor later said he did not “support giving dollars to taxpayers in professional sports stadiums” and that “it is also inappropriate to subsidize the political activity of a private corporation.”
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