San Francisco Giants Players Use Scripture to Protest Team’s Pride Night

Not much has gone right for the San Francisco Giants on the baseball diamond this season as they’ve floundered near the bottom of the standings. Amid a disappointing year, the team finally garnered some national coverage last week—but for actions that have nothing to do with balls, strikes, or home runs.

LGBTQ themed “Pride Nights” are standard across the major North American sports leagues. Among Major League Baseball teams, only the Texas Rangers do not plan to host an annual Pride Night (they will instead hold a “Faith and Family Night”). Among the various festivities, players are typically expected to incorporate the symbolic rainbow on their uniforms. However, the themed Pride nights have become contentious in recent years, with some players choosing to opt out due to their personal beliefs or religious convictions.

On June 12th, most SF Giants players wore hats showcasing the team’s logo with rainbow coloring, but some chose not to participate. One player opted to wear his regular team hat. Several others took their protest further and had different scriptural passages from Genesis 9 written on the Pride-themed hats. The specific biblical references tell of God’s promise to Noah that the rainbow will be a covenant between God and the earth. Adding a scripture verse to a Pride-themed hat is not a new response as it was done by LA Dodgers pitcher and future hall of famer Clayton Kershaw last year.

When asked about the decision to add the scripture verse, Giants starting pitcher Landen Roupp explained: “It’s something I believe in, and I stand firm in that. And thankfully we live in a country where you have the freedom to believe what we want and express what we want ….The rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant with us, and us as believers stand firm in that … There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for and what I stand in. I believe in God.”

When asked what he would say to someone who considered his decision to be derogatory to the LGBTQ community, Roupp continued, “As a believer, I would push them to read the Bible. God has blessed me in so many ways, and I don’t think I’d be here right now if it wasn’t for Him.”

As expected, the decision to opt out of or protest Pride Night drew quick criticism. An article in The Athletic (the New York Times owned sports outlet) ran the headline, “Giants pitchers’ Bible verses on Pride Night caps show how they’ve missed the point.” The McCovey Chronicles, a prominent team site from the SBNation network, published an even more pointed article: “Bad and Bigoted: The Giants told fans exactly who they are on Friday.”

While some journalists were seemingly surprised by the players’ decision to stand by their religious convictions and not participate in the team’s celebration of Pride Night, many on the SF Giants have been open and unashamed about their faith all year. It has become customary for players to wear shirts with the words “Jesus Won” during their postgame interviews following a win.

To take such a public stand for their religious convictions, particularly in a city such as San Francisco, takes tremendous courage. As more players follow their lead, electing not to wear rainbow-themed uniforms that go against their religious convictions and conscious, it may shift the pressure off the individual players and onto the sports leagues to reconsider the future of the annual Pride Nights, or any themed celebrations, that put its players in difficult positions.