That’s a pretty good idea. @DesertDog, you should recruit some ringers/plants to do just that.
Okay, this one takes a little explaining:
In Major League Baseball, each team has a “Pride night,” where teams wear caps that make some sort of reference to it being Pride Month.
Three players for the San Francisco Giants wrote references to Bible verses on their Pride caps. After the game, the League warned the team that this was against the rules. The rule book says that you can’t “write, attach, affix, embroider or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or playing equipment,’”
MLB rules allow for players to opt out of wearing the Pride hat if they have an objection. Instead, they have the option of wearing the standard team cap that they wear every other night.
Well, as you can imagine, this is being called an anti-Christian example of religious discrimination.
JD Vance weighed in, saying “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier appeared to threaten legal action against the league in a post on X on Tuesday afternoon, saying, “Do you practice religious discrimination in Florida, @MLB? You’ll be hearing from my office soon.”
And, of course, Facebook and X are all awash in people claiming that Christians are being discriminated against.
Someone else said it better, but I contend that it’s amazing how Christians can look at being treated equally as proof that they’re being discriminated against.
Being Christian means being persecuted…even if you have to do it yourself.
If FLA files a suit in state court against MLB, could MLB file a counter-suit in federal court?
Of course, they (the religious fucks) don’t really want to argue this in any court, they just want to cause enough trouble to end Pride night. I hope MLB doesn’t cave, but there’s no telling.
Ah, “Deplorean” Taylor and our stupid assed mayor.
To those not from Mesa: it’s a real nice museum.
That’s an interesting question. After all, this particular event didn’t happen in Florida. It was in Chicago, and the team affected was the San Francisco Giants. I’m pretty sure it’s just Florida posturing.
It’s not isolated to Christianity, but yes, in the US at least, many Christians often feel like if you don’t let them be special, they’re being oppressed. That comes with privilege; when you sense your privilege is being infringed upon, it is treated as being discriminated against, even when you still maintain that privilege overall. You see that with white people and males all the time too.
(Note, I am a white male Christian, and I recognize this shit and it disgusts me as much as anyone else.)
Another factor I’ve noticed in many MAGA types — which I believe is exacerbated by their patron — is thinking that a) every interaction is a transaction, and b) every transaction is zero sum. So even when it comes to a “commodity” such as basic human dignity, granting even a smidgen to the currently despised class means reducing the amount available to oneself. Which is to be avoided like the plague.
Disclaimer: the above is just an observation on my part, and is worth, at most, what you paid for it.
I get a lot of use out of this comic these days:
I’d steal that and use it in my Facebook arguments with the Christians and the Trump supporters, but they wouldn’t comprehend the meaning.
From what I know of having spent many years with MAGA-type folks in the church, it’s not so much that they think that “someone sat on my bench, therefore I can’t sit on it” as it is that they see things like Pride/LGBT as “I am being required to endorse what I consider to be evil, and I will be punished if I don’t endorse it, therefore putting me between a rock and a hard place.”
Yes, they’re delusional.
Which is contradicted in this case by the fact they were allowed to not wear the Pride hats. Instead, they chose to wear them and write something on them.
And I can bring this up on the Dope now: these are an example of costly signalling, and credibility enhancing displays. The idea is that it signals to their tribe that they are the truly committed ones by being willing to be punished. They might get a few odd looks if they wore the wrong hats. But by putting this verse on them, they get to be fined and show their true devotion.
In other words, simply not wearing the hat wouldn’t get them “persecuted” enough.
Missouri’s Attorney General has, not unsurprisingly, jumped into the fray and threatened to investigate MLB for “First Amendment violations.”
https://thehill.com/policy/sports-gaming/5929088-missouri-ag-mlb-giants-pride/
Never mind that this was a California team and the “crime” took place in Illinois. Missouri Republicans are always keen to get their performative posturing in whenever they can. Hell, I live in Missouri and I fear going into a persistent vegetative state, lest a “pro-life” politician use me as a prop like they did with Nancy Cruzan. As Og is my witness, I will come back from the dead and haunt anyone who does that to me.
It’s a performative legal stunt that will go nowhere. They don’t have standing, as you point out, and since the MLB isn’t a government entity it isn’t regulated by the First Amendment.
(Though if the team in question was the old Washington Senators, they might have an argument…)
To paraphrase: It’s not enough to be bigoted, you have to be seen being bigoted.
From their objections I have the impression they think the DEI police will pound on their door, forcibly eject their their spouse and deliver their new same-sex spousal unit.
And a new branch of sci-fi porno is born.
The new Woke government agency, the SSSSS.
Same-Sex Spousal Swapping Service
(You pronounce it like a brief hissing of air.)
And it sounds like SS! So true! (not)