Giants Pitchers Who Defaced Pride Hats Aren't HATEFUL, They're Just Rainbow Fact-Checkers!
It's not that they hate gay people, you see, it's that they believe Christians own the rainbow.
For over three decades now, starting in 1994 with their “Until There’s a Cure” HIV/AIDS awareness game, the San Francisco Giants have been hosting official Pride and LGBTQ+ nights at the ballpark, which makes sense, given where they are located. They were the first major league baseball team to do so, and were also the first MLB team to officially join the It Gets Better campaign, as well as the first to put rainbows on their team uniforms for Pride nights in June.
Well, last week, three of the team’s pitchers, Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker, really wanted to drive it home that, if they have anything to say about it, It Will Not Get Better And Will In Fact Get Worse. They decided to protest the rainbow hats that they were not even required to wear in the first place, by writing Bible verses on them.
Specifically, they cited Genesis 9:12-16, a passage about how the rainbow is meant to be a symbol of their God’s promise to not kill everyone on earth by drowning them again.
As they are not actually allowed to write stuff on their uniforms (and also had the option, again, of not wearing the hats, an option another player took advantage of), the players were reprimanded by the League, just like other players who have written other things on their hats or uniforms in the past.
Naturally, the Right (the same people who were very upset about Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem and not actually defacing anything) absolutely lost its shit over this, claiming the players were being discriminated against for “expressing their Christian faith,” and the Trump Department of Justice announced on Friday plans to launch a “civil rights investigation” into the MLB. You know, because of how they are very desperate to prove that Christians are being discriminated against in a country in which they are the majority and have the most actual power of any belief group.
Why? Because they think the “oppression olympics” are a real thing and that if they can successfully convince the rest of us that white heterosexual Christian men are the true victims of discrimination, they will be able to get the sweet, sweet “special treatment” they think all of the people who actually are oppressed have been getting. Or something? I guess?
However, the pitchers themselves now say that they do not feel they were discriminated against.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s discrimination,” Brubaker said. “It’s just people getting a hold of something and turning it into something. I just wanted to put my message and my beliefs [out there], and that was the end of it.”
Walker declined to comment on the specific question of religious persecution but explained that his decision to write a Bible verse, Genesis 9:12-16, on the side of his rainbow-colored cap the Giants wore for LGBTQ Pride Night had to do with internal, not external, pressure.
“I wouldn’t say I was necessarily pressured by anybody, MLB or whatever,” Walker said. “I’m more so questioning myself and what does my faith mean to me? Like, I have my beliefs and my side. What am I going to do to make sure I stand for my faith?”
And what beliefs are those, exactly? They’re not specific, but they claim it wasn’t about “hate.”
Both players stressed in interviews with The California Post and San Francisco Chronicle before Friday’s series opener against the Marlins that they didn’t intend to spread hate.
“I don’t have any hatred toward anyone,” Walker said. “I have gay friends.”
I’m sorry, but what is it that we’re supposed to believe here? That these guys just happened to choose this particular time, for no reason whatsoever, to express their religious beliefs about rainbows? Because, for people who are saying that all they want is to “stand for their faith,” they’re not doing a great job of explaining what they even mean by that. Are they trying to say “Look, it’s just that my religion that I believe in says LGBTQ+ people are bad, not that I, personally, am a mean person who thinks that LGBTQ+ people are bad?” Are they trying to be the rainbow police? Like, is it their actual contention that Christians own the rainbow and no one else can use it? What is it that they are trying to say?
The most generous reading of the situation is that they are mad about LGBTQ+ people using the rainbow as a symbol to represent something that they believe is against their religion, when “in fact,” the rainbow actually belongs to Christians. Because, you know, this one time their god flooded the entire world, save for one family and two of every animal (except for the unicorn, cause that bitch was running late or whatever), but then he felt like, really bad afterwards so he promised never to do it again and gave them a colorful sky arch to prove it.
I’m sorry, but if someone were in a relationship with a person who went on a mass murder spree and then apologized by saying “My bad, I’ll never do it again, please accept this meteorological phenomenon as proof of my promise,” no one in their right mind would tell them to stay. That’s not a thing to celebrate! Especially given that, apparently, the promise is only to not drown people again, not to kill everyone off again, as these people also believe that their god will eventually end the world by killing everyone with fire.
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I do try to not be too mean about religion because, while it’s obviously not my thing, there are lots of perfectly lovely people who are believers and it feels rude to be like “I’m sorry but there’s no way that actually happened, it makes no sense.” I don’t actually want to rain on anyone’s parade like that. But when motherfuckers are out here like “I’m not hateful, I’m just a rainbow fact-checker!” I think it’s fair to ask some questions.
I’m glad that these pitchers understand that they weren’t discriminated against, but they should perhaps take a minute to consider why defacing a Pride-themed hat with a Bible verse insinuating that the rainbow belongs exclusively to Christians might be a shitty thing to do. I don’t know much about Christianity beyond what I have learned from the musical works of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, but the Ted Neeley Jesus I know seems like he’d prefer that people spend more time caring about the poor and the sick then getting petty about who owns what colors.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
“I don’t have any hatred toward anyone,” Walker said. “I have gay friends.”
I doubt you have any gay friends now.
What gets me about people hating on Pride is that it's not only bigoted... it's anti-fun. Pride events and much of gay culture in general, in my opinion, are some of the most unproblematically joyous occasions there are. I walk into drag shows, gay bars, Pride parade crowds, etc. as an older straight guy, and not *once* have I been antagonized, rejected or ignored. These people are refusing to shake an open hand of friendship.