Well now. Who would have thought that I would find inspiration for a political discussion from Gaslamp Ball. Thanks to a user named Phantom though, I do 🙂 Now, normally I would not be highlighting anything Bill O’Reilly says. Much like Phantom, I have been known to listen to some conservative radio or visit their sites to keep touch with where they are coming from. Shoot – I was raised as one of them and voted with them until I was 35. Politically, I mostly crave education on topics. It just so happens that I nearly always end up on the liberal side of things of my own accord. However, I don’t lend any credence to Bill O because I think he is the biggest hypocrite of them all. There is more spinning in his no spin zone than on the revolution ride at your state fair! Fact checking is a foreign word to him. With him, I never learn, I am simply outraged or else out right laughing at him. However, as Phantom says, in this instance he is slandering My Padres and this I will not stand for!! Here is my particular take on the topic as a Padre fan, baseball fan, and mother of an almost 11 year old Padre fan who could have easily been at the ballpark with me that Sunday.
I am disturbed when ANY sexual innuendo is displayed at a ball game. Hooters Girls are there every freaking night showing off the next round of Hooters sponsored giveaway nights. Do you think those Hooters girls are DRESSED? Heck no – they have their skimpy Hooters outfits (such as they are) on. And they make darn sure to stick out their – um – assets. Ahem. What kind of message does that send to young kids? The dang camera men in between inning focus all the time on the hottest, least dressed girls in the stands. There is a Kiss Cam set between innings nearly every night as well. So I say if some kids happened to see two guys or two girls holding hands and maybe even kissing at that game on Sunday – yeah? So what? If you are going to censor that behavior then you better stop the other examples I gave as well. At some point you are going to have some explaining to do to your child anyhow. Shoot – I feel tons more uncomfortable watching an NFL football game with him what with their beer and viagra commercials!! For the record, those of my Gaslamp Ball friends who were at the game reported NO over the top displays of affection. They gays who attend were – gasp! – Padres fans wearing Padres gear with perhaps a rainbow flag or two here in their section.
The other issue to me is – so what if it was a kids giveaway day? Is Sunday the ONLY day kids/families are encouraged to go to the ball park? No! Do you think that there are never gays in attendance at Padres games otherwise? No! Was San Diego Pride the ONLY group being promoted at Petco that day? No! Was the San Diego Pride group promoted in any different way from other groups that attend games? No! In fact, the Padres did exactly the right thing. They treated the group as if they were any other and did not impose any restrictions on them. The Gay Men’s Chorus sang the National Anthem. Awesome. Bravo Padres! I’ve seen a broad spectrum of groups and individuals sing the anthem. It’s wonderful. My Padres are not dumb – Bill O is DUMB!
Worst of all though – to me personally – is that this would not even have been a news item if not for the protesters. That’s right. Your just a little too Out There Christian Group had to organize a rather feeble protest outside the gates “warning” parents – and only parents mind you – that they were entering a gay friendly zone. Watch out folks! Your kids might catch ‘gay’! Ooooh. Scary stuff. I love how one of the Gaslamp Ball commenters says he would be afraid if his kids “caught Christian” 🙂 Now, don’t take that wrong. I am sure he would love for his kids to be religious and love god, but I think we all know he meant he would not want them to catch THAT kind of Christian. Because to my experience (and you can see below that I studied a bit of religion in my youth) teaching your children to hate someone for *any* reason is just plain Un-Christian. Slight segue: speaking of un-christian, check out the video in this blog post on the interruption of the first Hindu giving the morning prayer in the Senate this morning. I believe my exact reaction to that was “Oh fer fuck’s sake!” Seriously. I believe in freedom of religion – down to the chore of my soul I believe this. That includes the freedom to NOT be religious. But it’s examples like these that make me think freedom FROM religion aint so bad either!
Back to Bill O and the Gaslamp Ball diary. I think they thing I take away from all this though is a feeling of hope and optimism. Now, from the start the blog owners warned everyone to be respectful or else they would pull the diary. After all – it is a baseball blog, not a political one. But I think everyone did very well – even the one guy who you could tell was trying to defend Bill O and his supporters. In the end though – I was heartened by how many of these guys thought it was all No Big Deal! You would think on a sports blog that you would get the kinds of guys who write those beer commercials that piss me off – or who the Padres cater to when they hire the Hooters girls to be on the field. Yet there they were, generally showing tolerance and acceptance. Of course they did have to devolve a bit into the discussion of how seeing two hot chicks kiss on Kiss Cam is totally FINE and actually desired ;-> But overall I felt optimistic about the future. As I posted at one point, it’s a long slow process for any minority group to gain acceptance. Existing generations that accepted and encourage and practiced discrimination still exist. Yet, some of them have had their minds opened (like my parents) and made it a point to raise their children to not think of it as anything different or to be feared. In fact, my parents treated it as No Big Deal – normal you would even say – with me. I have since raised one boy to adulthood with the same example and will continue that with my youngest. There are greater numbers of children growing up now learning to not fear these differences – and soon those voices will drown out the old tired ones. Even with the more extreme Christians trying to stem that tide – it will eventually turn. Because it is progress. And it is a sign of truly showing God’s love if you stop the hate and show love and acceptance yourself.
Finally though – the one REAL point made in that whole discussion was made by Boy Howdy. Forget worrying about exposing your children to gays or Christians – it’s much more frightening when you think that we expose them to DODGER fans a minimum of 9 times a year!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!! Not DODGER FAN!!!
Peace :-> (and Go Padres!)
Trees & Flowers & Birds! 
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