FIRST ON FOX — A local news outlet is refusing to air a one-minute ad criticizing the Los Angeles Dodgers for inviting an anti-Catholic drag queen troupe to the team’s annual Pride Night June 16.
CatholicVote last week launched an ad, “The Dodgers Have Lost Their Way,” as part of the organization’s $1 million campaign to raise awareness about the LA Dodgers’ decision to honor the Los Angeles chapter of a drag troupe The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, considered by many to be an anti-Catholic hate group.
The ads were initially scheduled to air on TV and radio stations in the days leading up to Friday’s game, which the Dodgers are calling LGBTQ+ Pride Night at Dodger Stadium. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will be honored with a Community Hero Award.
According to CatholicVote, shortly before the first ad was to run June 9, Spectrum SportsNet LA, the sports network that carries Dodgers games in the LA market, rejected CatholicVote’s ad as “too controversial” after first accepting it to run last weekend.
Screenshot of the CatholicVote ad, “The Dodgers Have Lost Their Way” (Courtesy of CatholicVote)
“We weren’t shocked that the Dodgers’ affiliate canceled our ad because the Dodgers have shown repeatedly that they only care about the feelings of these extremist bigots,” Tommy Valentine of CatholicVote told Fox News Digital.
“We pivoted quickly and already have millions of views of the ad across various platforms. We will not be silenced, and we will not stand idly by while the Dodgers show their contempt for Catholics“.
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The ad begins by highlighting the Dodgers’ history of being “trailblazers,” particularly for the team’s historic decision to sign Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball.
“Playing Jackie wasn’t popular. Hate and disrespect were popular, even in law. But the Dodgers were right. They helped power a movement and changed the nation. Their leadership, class and style of play were the envy of baseball. ‘The Dodger Way,’” the ad says.
Screenshot of CatholicVote TV ad (Courtesy of CatholicVote)
“But, today, the Dodgers are putting it all at risk,” the ad says. “On June 16, a prominent anti-Catholic hate group will be honored on the field, a group that mocks Catholic nuns with vile sexual perversions, pole dances on crosses, blessings with sex toys, even sexualizing the Virgin Mary and the words of Jesus Christ.
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“A fringe group like this honored, awarded, celebrated? There is no equality in mocking religious women. No tolerance in hate, no pride in anti-Catholic bigotry. Mocking Christians is not the Dodger way,” it concludes.
According to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital, the network originally agreed to run the ad during the pregame, the game itself and postgame if it could blur a brief, obscene image of one of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence allegedly swinging a sex toy.
A member of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence attends a Jewish-Christian church service on Christopher Street Day at St. Mary’s Church in Berlin, Germany, June 20, 2014. (Daniel Naupold)
After CatholicVote agreed to blur the image, Spectrum ultimately still rejected the ad because management of the network believed the “subject matter” to be “too controversial.”
The Dodgers first incurred intense backlash when they invited the group last month, so they rescinded the initial invitation. But, the next day, after LA Pride announced it would no longer be participating in Pride Night in solidarity with the drag queen group, the team invited the controversial troupe again.
“The LA Dodgers’ choice to honor a group that exists to mock, sexualize and pervert the teachings of the Catholic faith is wildly out of line with their tradition of inclusivity, love and their history of fighting bigotry,” said Tommy Valentine, director of the Catholic Accountability Project at CatholicVote.
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CatholicVote has since been able to secure a new platform to run the ad during Dodgers games that are streamed in LA and New York City.
A request by Fox News Digital to Spectrum SportsNet LA for comment was not returned by time of publication.
