Whitlock: The Los Angeles Dodgers and sports world take ‘Pride’ in betraying the Christian founders of organized sports

The LGBTQIA+ Alphabet Mafia can fly the “Mission Accomplished” flag above the sports world.

They won. Yesterday, the Los Angeles Dodgers officially surrendered on behalf of the wide world of sports. The Dodgers apologized to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of gay men who mock religious faith by dressing as Catholic nuns, women who dedicate their entire lives to God and to the service of their fellow man. A week ago, the baseball franchise bowed to the outrage of Catholics and disinvited the blasphemous group of drag queens to the organization’s annual “Pride Night.”

Monday, the Dodgers backtracked.

“After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations with the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families,” the Dodgers wrote in a statement.

“We have asked the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to take their place on the field at our 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night on June 16th. We are pleased to share that they have agreed to receive the gratitude of our collective communities for the lifesaving work that they have done tirelessly for decades.”

It’s a wrap. Mission accomplished. The sports world favors sexual and gender identity over religious faith. Worse, sports leagues have disavowed their founders.

You realize who organized sports? It wasn’t lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers. It was the Young Men’s Christian Association. The YMCA.

Founded in the U.K. in the mid-1800s, the YMCA aspired to promote “muscular Christianity” across the globe. Muscular Christianity, according to Wikipedia, refers to belief in “patriotic duty, discipline, self-sacrifice, masculinity, and the moral and physical beauty of athleticism.”

Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and every other American sports league owe their founding to the YMCA. I bet most people, including athletes, do not know what the letters in YMCA mean.

The Alphabet Mafia co-opted the acronym in the late 1970s with the Village People gay anthem “Y.M.C.A.” There’s a pattern here. The secular co-opt the customs, symbols, and institutions Christians build.

Ivy League schools started as Bible seminaries. The rainbow symbolizes God’s promise never again to flood the earth. Organized sports were designed to promote muscular Christianity.

The Catholic Church, through its Catholic Youth Organization, led the charge to integrate sports. Founded in Chicago in 1930, the CYO adopted a core principle not to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or sex.

Jackie Robinson likely would not have donned a Dodgers uniform in 1947 had it not been for the work of the CYO.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence mock the religious faith of a group that has a near-100-year history of supporting and improving organized sports.

St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys taught Babe Ruth how to play baseball. John the Evangelist Catholic School trained Cowboys legend Roger Staubach. Power Memorial Catholic Academy developed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. St. Vincent-St. Mary High School cultivated LeBron James.

Catholic high schools are often criticized for recruiting top athletes, particularly black ones. Most people are unaware that the CYO little leagues and high school powerhouses are part of a religious mission that started in the 1930s, long before sports were flooded with money and outsized prestige.

The proponents of critical race theory love to complain about the history that isn’t taught. They never complain about the positive history that is ignored. LeBron James has no idea his wealth is a direct byproduct of the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Catholic Youth Organization.

Professional athletes would rather ally with the Alphabet Mafia than with Christians. People who see their primary identity as sexual have and had nothing to do with the rise of professional sports. It’s the people whose primary identity is based in their relationship with Christ who built the sports world and almost everything else we enjoy in America.

The Dodgers and the sports world have betrayed their founders.

It’s sickening. It’s sickening that the broadcasters and pundits earning millions of dollars talking about sports will not discuss the betrayal. Stephen A. Smith, Dan Le Batard, Shannon Sharpe, Pat McAfee, Dave Portnoy, Jalen Rose, Mina Kimes, and all the rest are grifters eating off a table set by Christians. They’re too uninformed or too cowardly to defend the faith that made their wealth and popularity possible.

The same cowardice and stupidity afflict the athletes. They’re ungrateful. They’re too high on weed or too filled with pride to recognize their treason. Their handlers tell them what to think, whom to support, and what to ignore. Many of the athletes feign religious faith.

How can they ignore “Pride Night”?

There are few things made more clear in the Bible than the evil and destructiveness of pride. Proverbs 16:5: “Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be sure of this, they will not go unpunished.”

Pride is the gateway drug to idolatry. The LGBTQ+ have placed their sexual and gender identity well above their identity in Christ. They’re taking pride in being outside the body of Christ.

That is their right. As American citizens, they have every right to do that. As a Christian, I don’t have to celebrate their foolish decision. I don’t have to play along and pretend Pride Night is a good thing. It’s a celebration of secular values. It’s a celebration of being in disobedience to God.

The Young Men’s Christian Association laid the foundation for Major League Baseball and all sports leagues. Professional sports are the wrong platform to mock religious faith.

That should be done on Bill Maher’s HBO show or other comedy stages.

It’s blasphemous on a baseball diamond, a football field, and a basketball court.