Los Angeles Dodgers Drag-Nuns News Coverage Reveals Bad Journalism Habits
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been invited by the Los Angeles Dodgers to take part in Pride Month festivities. (Wikipedia Commons photo)
(ANALYSIS) Sports have always brought people together. That’s a big reason that they have been so popular for decades. But in our ever-polarized world around political lines, sports have taken a hit. Whether it involved NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem or NBA players supporting Black Lives Matter, sports and sports journalism have become increasingly political the last few years.
Baseball, and specifically the Los Angeles Dodgers, became the focus of controversy over the last two weeks when the team invited, then uninvited, and then issued a welcome once again a group known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a well-known San Francisco group of queer and transgender people dressed as nuns at the team’s annual Pride Night on June 16.
As many noted, there’s no way a sports franchise would have given this kind of salute to a group of traditional Catholics opposed by cultural progressives, a group like the Little Sisters of the Poor.
What took place during this entire saga is a series of predictable news media coverage twists and turns guided by professionals who, it appears, saw this issue from their own left-right vantage points. Modern journalism is often criticized for building narratives and reading minds rather than reporting facts and interviewing both sides. This story fit that mold.
While the news coverage lacked voices from both sides in this debate, most of the reports also lacked another very important term — anti-Catholic.
Are these “nuns” anti-Catholic? It certainly depends on which side of this debate you are on, and many news outlets made that clear, thus ignoring citizens whose views were found to be heretical in terms of current newsroom dogmas.
Take, for example, the Los Angeles Times feature that ran on May 25 that included a photo shoot with the sisters. Here’s how that piece opened:
Ask the L.A. Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence why they decided to join the order of drag nuns, and most of them will tell you it’s because they felt the call.
Sister Tootie Toot (glitter green lips, dark beard, emerald cocktail dress) felt it like a ton of bricks when she walked into a leather bar where several sisters had assembled.
Sister Unity (tangerine veil, tangerine eye makeup, furry tangerine stole) felt it like a tingling mix of fire, ice and electricity when she happened upon the original order of sisters blessing the crowd at a pride parade in San Francisco. And Sister Candy Cide of the Immaculate Misconception (long-sleeve black dress, white bib, several strands of fake pearls) was struck by the feeling of power emanating from a group of visiting drag nuns walking down the street at an L.A. Pride event.
“I was still feeling the guilt that I was going to let my parents down because of who I was,” she said. “When I found out the message of the sisters was about removing stigmatic guilt and repairing people’s joy, I was like, ‘I need to do that for myself, and I need to do it for other people too.’”
With their signature white makeup, oversize wimples (they call them Hoobie Doobies) and supersize lashes, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence turn heads wherever they go. But the group’s national profile soared to new heights recently when the Dodgers announced that they would recognize the sisters with a community heroes award, rescinded the award after pushback from conservative Catholic groups and then reinstated it — all over the course of a whirlwind few days.
The sisters reaccepted the award as Dodgers leadership vowed to better educate themselves. Instead of bitterness, the sisters offered up a benediction:
May the games be blessed!
May the players be blessed!
May the fans be blessed!
May the beer and hot dogs flow forth in tasty abundance!
While some might have found it difficult to forgive the Dodgers, that’s not the sisters’ way, said Sister June Cleavage, a cisgender female member of the group. (The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence welcome people of “every gender, race, romantic alignment, class, species, phylum, beverage preference, & sexual proclivity,” according to their website.)
It’s a glowing feature that reads more like ad content. The only mention of the other side in this debate is this singular paragraph:
The sisters’ mission statement is “the expiation of stigmatic guilt and the promulgation of universal joy,” but since their inception, they’ve been called diabolical and anti-Catholic and accused by their detractors of mocking Catholic nuns.
Note “they’ve been called.” There is no need to include specific actions, rites and pronouncements that would support that point of view. Some would not, of course, be safe for viewing in non-hip family homes.
Throughout the mainstream press coverage of this saga, the stories followed this cookie-cutter pattern: Dodgers invite a group of well-meaning performers (who happen to dress as Catholic nuns) to a worthy annual event and conservatives (religious and political) pounce.
Nothing to see here. Move along. You see, it’s some nasty traditional Catholics who made this a big deal.
Here is how CBS News covered this issue after the sisters were reinvited. This is the key section summarizing what happened midway through the article:
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have often been scrutinized by Catholic groups for their parodied performances, while dressed like nuns, that "use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit," according to their website.
In a statement released last Wednesday, the Dodgers announced that they were revoking the already extended invite to the nonprofit organization, saying, "Given the strong feelings of people who have been offended by the sisters' inclusion in our evening, and in an effort not to distract from the great benefits that we have seen over the years of Pride Night, we are deciding to remove them from this year's group of honorees."
The Dodgers initial decision to rescind their invitation came on the heels of outrage from Florida state Senator Marco Rubio and various Catholic groups, including the Catholic League. Both penned letters to Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to berate the Dodgers choice in inviting the group to their celebration, mainly in part because the group "mocks Christians through diabolical parodies of our faith."
However, that choice was met with additional backlash from LGBTQ+ groups around the country, including massive Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization LA Pride, who announced that they would withdraw from the 10th Annual Dodgers Pride Night celebration due to the abrupt and controversial decision.
Note how the controversial aspects of this story are seen through the eyes of the group in question, especially since CBS quotes the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence’s own website to do so.
In conservative and Catholic media, the story was covered from a different vantage point. For example, Fox News gave plenty of time, on air and website, to the Dodgers invitation. They weren’t shy about giving space to critics, most notably a group known as CatholicVote.
Here’s an example from a recent Fox News story:
One of the nation’s largest Catholic advocacy organizations has issued a letter to the Los Angeles Dodgers announcing an upcoming ad campaign calling for a boycott of the baseball club.
CatholicVote President Brian Burch addressed the letter to Dodgers principal owner Mark Walter and CEO Stan Kasten.
“I represent the nation’s largest lay Catholic advocacy organization,” Burch wrote. “We are supported by millions of devoted Catholics across America who believe that the time-honored values of life, family, and freedom — which the Dodgers used to celebrate — are demonstrably good for America, and worthy of respect, not ridicule.”
“We wrote to you last week with a reasonable ask: Please do not honor this anti-Catholic hate group,” Burch told the Dodgers’ administrators. “There is no place for anti-Catholic bigotry, mocking of religious sisters, or celebrating a perverse activist group whose identity is marked by blasphemy and mockery of Catholics.”
In the letter, Burch questioned Kasten’s claim to the Los Angeles Times that the Dodgers’ administration was “listening to everyone” on the issue of including the anti-Catholic drag queen troupe Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Fox went there by using the word “anti-Catholic.” In fact, a News Google search of the words “nuns” and “Dodgers” and “anti-Catholic” yields results from organizations such as Fox News, The Washington Examiner, New York Post and National Review. In other words, news sites on the right — alone. There is no need for elite-media reporting on these matters.
Catholic News Agency, which is on the doctrinal right, also used the word “anti-Catholic” in its coverage, specifically when others said it. It was some of the most fair reporting of this entire situation.
Here is an example:
In response, CatholicVote, a Catholic advocacy group that publicly condemned the initial invitation, vowed to launch a “barrage” of advertising against the team across Los Angeles and in game broadcasts.
“This is a slap in the face of every Catholic,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch said in a statement. “We’re raising $1 million as fast as we can, and we will pummel this decision in advertising that the Dodgers can’t ignore.”
“Every advertiser, every season ticket holder, every charity, every fan must speak out against the Dodgers’ decision to promote anti-Catholic hate,” Burch added. “Why does ‘pride’ have to include honoring the most grotesque and scandalous anti-Catholic perverts?”
The Dodgers’ decision also drew the ire of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. “Our Catholic sisters devote themselves to serving others selflessly. Decent people would not mock & blaspheme them,” he tweeted Tuesday. “So we now know what gods the Dodger admin worships. Open desecration & anti-Catholicism is not disqualifying. Disappointing but not surprising. Gird your loins.”
These were easy reactions to include in stories, many of which had been posted to Twitter.
In terms of opinion pieces, some of whom got lots of attention on the internet, there were two in particular. The first was a supportive essay that ran in USA Today by sports writer Mike Freeman, who is the paper’s race and inequality editor.
Here is how he opened the piece:
It may seem like hate wins a lot. And yes, it often does. That’s because hate is among the easiest of feelings to generate, to manipulate. Hate is easy and lazy. It’s the dirty bomb of emotions. It’s painful to say this, scary to say this, but it does work. Far too often.
Yes, hate does win, but what the unbelievable situation with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence shows, is that hate can be beat. It can be beat with steadiness, righteousness, and allyship. Hate can be beaten back when good people care.
This is the biggest lesson from all of this and it should be extrapolated to other parts of our lives. When it seems like the bad guys will win, and the villain is giving his speech detailing how he’s going to use his laser blaster to destroy you, there is always room to fight. Just when it seemed that the Dodgers were going to continue to cower, they didn’t. Not because they suddenly saw the light, but because they were forced to see it.
The Dodgers aren’t the heroes here, the Sisters are. So are the people who backed the group with skill and loudness. That’s another lesson to learn. The bigots will bring their bullhorn. You should bring yours, too.
The Dodgers aren’t the heroes here, the Sisters are. So are the people who backed the group with skill and loudness. That’s another lesson to learn. The bigots will bring their bullhorn. You should bring yours, too.
Freeman is certainly entitled to his opinion. But Freeman’s piece provides an insight into what mainstream newsrooms were thinking when covering this story.
The opinion piece that gave a more nuanced approach to the issue — and probably one that showed where many Catholics fell on this issue — was published in America magazine, the Jesuit Catholic journal.
Here’s how Michael O’Loughlin, a national correspondent at America, framed the debate:
News that the Los Angeles Dodgers had invited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an L.G.B.T. activist group known for members who dress in drag resembling the black-and-white habits of Catholic sisters, happened to break as I was reporting on a forthcoming story about actual Catholic sisters. Earlier this month, the Sisters of Charity of New York voted to begin a process that will effectively bring to conclusion their nearly 200 years of ministry. Or as the sisters put it, they will now embark on a “path to completion.”
In the days following the initial announcement of the Dodgers’ decision, especially as images of the drag troupe filled social media, my mind went to the women religious, including some Sisters of Charity, whose good work too often goes unnoticed and who are collectively the unfortunate target of mockery.
He also notes the following:
Some members of the group use lewd and crude comedy in their performances, as their Catholic detractors have highlighted this week. But the group also raises money for charitable causes and seeks to bring visibility to a community often under siege.
According to a press release in response to the Dodgers controversy from the San Francisco branch of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the organization was founded “in response to the AIDS crisis, when gay men, who their faiths and families had abandoned because of their orientation, were sick and dying.”
Finally this:
Critics of drag, of which there have been many in recent years, often fail to appreciate how the artform uses humor to poke fun at those who hold power, especially those who wield that power to hurt marginalized groups. Often, performances are over the top, and it is not uncommon for snarkier drag queens to cross various lines. That is sometimes even the point, to use humor to shake those who may have become complacent.
What causes me some unease about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, however, especially at this particular moment, is that their costumes mock women who wield relatively little power, especially in the church. These women are often responsible for creating some of the most L.G.B.T.-affirming spaces in an institution that can regularly feel unwelcoming to the community.
Unfortunately, much of the mainstream news coverage regarding this issue didn’t present both sides fairly. The news media, for the most part, fell into bad journalistic habits of presenting the “nuns” as an aggrieved side and critics as the bad guys. This was, of course, a much more complicated story. There was lots of nuance and voices on both sides that could have added valid content. Instead, what we have read is both predictable and one-sided. As a result, readers are left with only a part of story. This is the new normal, it appears.
This post originally appeared at GetReligion.
Clemente Lisi is a senior editor at Religion Unplugged and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. He is the author of “The FIFA World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event.” Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.