“People have a right to whatever religious beliefs they want … but they don’t have a right to hijack their employer to promote those hateful beliefs at a job-related event.”
California State Senator Scott Wiener, who is known for attending LGBTQ events alongside men dressed in leather bondage gear, criticized the San Franciscion Giants players who wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night caps, accusing them of “defacing” the hats with religious references.
In a lengthy statement, Wiener responded to reports that multiple Giants players had handwritten Bible verses on their caps during the team’s Pride Night celebration last week.
“On San Francisco Giants Pride Night — also the tenth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre — several players defaced their Pride caps with a biblical passage that has been hijacked by homophobes to ‘take back’ the rainbow from LGBTQ people,” Wiener wrote. “The players could have displayed this passage any night of the year but chose to do it only on Pride Night.”
“The Giants, sadly, took no action in response, which is inconsistent with the Giants’ longstanding support for our LGBTQ community. Major League Baseball then warned the players that MLB rules bar defacement of uniforms. The Giants should publicly commit to enforcing rules around uniform defacement and should not effectively create a homophobia exemption to those rules.”
“MAGA leaders like JD Vance and Josh Hawley are now glomming on and declaring an anti-LGBTQ culture war, in an attempt to bully MLB from enforcing its rules. MAGA leaders are only taking issue with enforcement of the rule against homophobic defacement, not any other form of defacement,” he continued. “Once again, MAGA shows its true colors: Bigotry against LGBTQ people. This isn’t an issue of religious freedom. People have a right to whatever religious beliefs they want — even if those beliefs dehumanize other people — but they don’t have a right to hijack their employer to promote those hateful beliefs at a job-related event.”
Wiener then defended MLB for issuing a warning to these players for writing Bible verses on their caps.
“MLB didn’t warn these players for their faith. Rather, it warned them for violating the rules of their employment,” Weiner said. “MLB must hold firm in enforcing its rules. And the Giants must do better. There cannot be a homophobia exemption to the MLB uniform defacement ban.”
In a post on X responding to Josh Hawley, Weiner argued that MLB’s actions were related to uniform policy rather than a violation of religious freedom.
“People have a right to whatever religious beliefs they want — even if those beliefs dehumanize other people — but they don’t have a right to hijack their employer to promote those hateful beliefs at a job-related event. MLB didn’t penalize them for their faith. It penalized them for violating the rules of their employment,” he argued.
https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/2066976486830358953?s=20
The dispute comes amid continued criticism of Wiener’s political record, particularly on LGBTQ+ issues. The California lawmaker has authored several high-profile pieces of legislation, including measures related to California’s policies in aiding children seeking gender transition procedures, as well as biological male convicts being housed in women’s prisons.
Wiener has also faced criticism in previous years for his support of and attendance at the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, where he stood alongside men dressed in leather and BDSM-themed attire. The street festival has come under fire in recent years for public displays of nudity and sexual acts.
Following reports that Giants players had received a warning from MLB over the inscriptions on their Pride Night caps, Vice President JD Vance weighed in on social media, writing, “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.”
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