On June 2, I posted an entry about the Atlanta Braves plan to have “Faith Nights” at Turner Field this summer.
Faith Nights (and Days) is a promotion that aims to turn the ballpark into an evangelical Christian testimony service. In a piece for The Nation titled ““You Can Keep the Faith,” Dave Zirin exposes the Braves promotion as a surreptitious collaboration with the James Dobson’s anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-sex education Focus on the Family organization.
Zirin calls for Faith Days and Nights at ballparks in the major and minor leagues to be “exposed, picketed and, most of all, shunned. Let the emissaries of Dobson preach in peace outside the park. Inside is sacred space.”
You can send a letter of protest to the Atlanta Braves via their web site.
Here’s my latest letter to the Braves:
I have been a long time Braves fan (since before the team moved to Atlanta) and as an Atlanta resident in the 1970s and 1980s I attended many games.
I wanted to let you know that I am deeply offended by the Braves “Faith Night” promotion. This promotion is blatantly exclusive of religious faiths outside of evangelical Christianity and it links the Atlanta Braves with an organization that is anti-gay and anti-Semitic.
Ostensibly a collaboration with Third Coast Sports, this promotion is apparently (according to the Third Coast Sports website) a partnership between the Atlanta Braves and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family an evangelical Christian group that is anti-choice, anti-gay, against sex education, and the leading proponent of the bogus notion of “reparative therapy” for homosexuality.
I find the very notion of “Faith Nights” at the ball park disheartening as baseball has (and should remain) a game that brings diverse people together, however, this crass marketing campaign to bring bus loads of church goers to the park actually works to build barriers between people. Personally, as die-hard Braves fan all my life, your collaboration with religious hate-mongers deeply saddens me.
E. Wayne Ross
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