Focus on the Family was on the team that promoted Major League Baseball’s first “Faith Days” event at Turner Field July 27, but the Atlanta Braves now say the anti-gay group headed by James Dobson is no longer part of its lineup.
“We have asked the promoter [Nashville-based Third Coast Sports] to not include Focus on the Family in our other two Faith Day events,” Beth Marshall, Braves spokesperson, said Aug. 1. “We do not feel it is an appropriate connection for Focus on the Family to be part of this event.”
Marshall declined further comment on the matter, but said hosting Faith Days was a business decision.
“We were approached by Third Coast about the event and with over 5,000 churches within 75 miles of Turner Field, it made good business sense,” she said.
Focus on the Family spokesperson Christina Loznicka acknowledged the Braves’ request to drop the group from the team’s future Faith Days, which are scheduled for Aug. 13 and Aug. 26, but offered no reaction.
“Correct, Focus on the Family will not be attending future Faith Day events with the Atlanta Braves,” she said in an e-mail. “Any further questions should be directed directly to the Braves.”
Brent High, president of Third Coast Sports, praised his group’s partnership with Focus on the Family in a July 26 press release on Third Coast’s website promoting the Faith Days game.
“To have the opportunity to help Focus on the Family expand their reach is very rewarding. We hope this is just the beginning of a much larger cooperative effort,” he said.
Then on Aug. 1, High said he had no comment on the Braves’ decision to request Focus on the Family be removed as a sponsor of its future events.
Baseball should stay neutral?
At the Braves game July 27, in which the Atlanta team
was trounced by the Florida Marlins 6-1, Focus on the Family representatives passed out materials about its programs. Some of the programs highlighted at the game, according to the Focus on the Family’s website, included its Focus on Parenting program (www.focusonyourchild.com), which features a “Hot Topic” about children and homosexuality and how gay activist groups are “targeting” public schools. Other materials passed out included a packet on Troubledwith.com, a website for individuals and families in crisis that also lists homosexuality as a topic.
Rev. Paul Graetz, senior pastor of the gay First Metropolitan Community Church of Atlanta, said news that the Braves allowed Focus on the Family to distribute its anti-gay materials inside Turner Field jeopardizes the team’s popularity among gay fans.
“People come to see a baseball game, not be exposed to politics or religion,” he said. “I think it’s a smart move by the Braves to move away from Focus on the Family.”
Focus on the Family’s rhetoric against gays — including its renowned endorsements of reparative therapy, or the “ex-gay” movement — has no place in Turner Field, Graetz added.
“They have not cornered the market on Christianity. The Christian voice is a diverse voice,” he said. “And a baseball game is a neutral place for the purpose of watching a game. It’s an all-American sport that should be just that — an evening out to socialize.”
On July 26, the day before Faith Day, the Braves sponsored a First MCC Day at Turner Field, although the event was not promoted by the team and dwarfed in comparison to the evangelical Christian event.
This is the third year the Braves marketing team has reached out to First MCC to offer discount tickets, Graetz said. Each year, the church sells about 100 tickets to members and friends for a social night at the ballpark. As part of the deal, the First MCC logo is broadcast on the Braves’ giant video screen.
“But we’re not going there to make a political statement or scream, ‘We’re here and we’re queer,’” Graetz said. “A baseball game is for everyone.”
Chuck Bowen, executive director of Georgia Equality, the state’s largest gay rights organization, said learning about Focus on the Family’s brief relationship with the Braves was disheartening.
“My first reaction was complete dismay since the Braves and their affiliates are known to be LGBT friendly,” he said.
After learning the Braves now want nothing to do with Focus on the Family, Georgia Equality sent a letter to the Braves organization thanking it for “being on the right side of history.”
“[Y]our courageous decision, followed by the action to ask that Focus on the Family not be one of the benefactors, sends a very distinct and powerful message that bigotry of any type is not welcome in Atlanta,” Bowen wrote.
Time Warner, which owns the Braves, scored an 86 on the 2005 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for including sexual orientation in its non-discrimination statement and offering domestic partner benefits to employees, including those of the Atlanta Braves. The media giant failed to score 100 because it does not offer gender identity protections, according to HRC.
Smoltz speaks
The Braves’ first Faith Day event attracted more than 3,000 members of local Christian churches to Turner Field on July 27. Attendees paid for either a $16 game/concert combo ticket or $10 concert-only ticket. The tickets allowed participants to witness devout Christian John Smoltz speak about his relationship with Jesus Christ as well as listen to a popular Christian band.
Dubbed his “Sermon on the Mound” by CBS News in a July 28 story, Smoltz told the crowd who stayed after the game that as a baseball player, he is booed and applauded.
“None of which has made me any happier than knowing and having a personal relationship with my Lord and Savior,” he said, according to CBS News.
Smoltz raised the ire of gay-rights activists in July 2004 after allegedly comparing gay marriage to bestiality, according to an Associated Press story.
“Smoltz, a devout Christian, criticized those who want to legalize gay marriage,” the AP reported. “‘What’s next? Marrying an animal?’ he asked derisively.”
The Braves did at one time promote “gay days” at their games, although no such events occurred recently.
In 2001, the Braves sold 2,000 discounted promotional tickets to Atlanta Games, Inc., a group that led an unsuccessful bid to land the 2006 Gay Games in Atlanta. Gay fans bought up all of the tickets, and “gay night” set a Turner Field record for the stadium’s largest group-sponsored event.
Attendance at the event waned the next year, with only 500 tickets sold. In 2003, the event didn’t take place at all.
More Faith Days planned
Additional Faith Days concerts, featuring some of the top names in contemporary Christian music, are scheduled to take place f
