San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie took the occasion of the annual fundraising breakfast for the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club to again critique the San Francisco Giants pitchers for their anti-LGBTQ gestures during Pride Night at Oracle Park.
On June 12, the Giants celebrated San Francisco’s LGBTQ community as the team kicked off a weekend series against the Chicago Cubs. Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker wrote Bible verses on their Giants-issued Pride caps. A fourth pitcher didn’t wear his hat. Speaking to reporters after the game, Roupp said that the rainbow is “a symbol of God’s covenant to us,” echoing decades of homophobic rhetoric.
Six days later, Lurie said he was “incredibly disappointed and upset” by the players’ actions.
Predictably, the controversy has become a new front in the culture war, with the US Department of Justice now investigating the team for discriminating against players for their religious beliefs.
At a press conference last week, Giants President Buster Posey refused to address the controversy, insisting he’d only answer “baseball questions.” On Thursday, Giants President and CEO Larry Baer offered his explanation, telling an interviewer for KBNR, “We take pride in being industry leaders in that effort with the LGBTQ community.”
During an otherwise staid speech at the Alice B. Toklas event, Lurie said he wanted to “acknowledge something.”
“I know for this community, progress has never been a straight line,” the mayor told the crowd of about 550 at the Regency Hyatt on the Embarcadero. “Two weeks ago, Pride Night at the ballpark became something it never should have been.”
As private citizens, the mayor said, the Giants players are free to practice their faith, “but when you put the uniform on of one of our teams, you represent something bigger than yourself,” he said. “You represent San Francisco. And there is no San Francisco without the LGBTQ+ community.”
The line was met with applause.
