The Free Press
NewslettersSign InSubscribe

Share this post

The Free Press
The Free Press
Pride Night at Dodgers Stadium
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Pride Night at Dodgers Stadium
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence receive a community hero award before the game at Dodgers Stadium on June 16, 2023. (Meg Oliphant via Getty Images)
Drag queens dressed as nuns. And the real fans who know that the only theater in the stadium was the ball game.
By Peter Savodnik
06.20.23 — Culture and Ideas
607
452

Share this post

The Free Press
The Free Press
Pride Night at Dodgers Stadium
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More

On Friday, the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted their tenth Pride Night at Dodgers Stadium. 

Their first two Pride Nights took place in 2013 and 2014, and if ever there were anything vaguely radical about it, it was then, before the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 in favor of gay marriage. Since then, Pride Night had mostly been a non-event, a celebration of that which most Angelenos, like most Americans, had already come to accept. In 2022, 52,505 people attended Pride Night, about 5,000 more than typically attend a Dodgers game.

This year was different.

This time, the Dodgers invited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag queens from San Francisco who have outraged Catholics by dressing as nuns and taking part in fake crucifixions. The Sisters have been around since 1979, and they’ve long been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS activism. They were extras in the cavalcade of marginalized voices San Francisco had gathered into its bosom like a hippy, trippy mama bear.

And then the Dodgers invited them to Pride Night. They never said why. It didn’t make sense—make-believe nuns insulting the Dodgers’ mostly Catholic fans. (According to the marketing firm Portada, 2.1 million of the 3.9 million people who attended Dodger games in 2022 were Latino.) Maybe it was that, between 2022 and 2023, drag queens became a cause. Suddenly, right-minded people were supposed to care about them and believe that they should be celebrated, even by children at libraries.

Maintaining The Free Press is Expensive!
To support independent journalism, and unlock all of our investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is, subscribe below.
Already have an account?
Sign In
Peter Savodnik
Peter Savodnik is senior editor at The Free Press. Previously, he wrote for Vanity Fair, as well as GQ, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Wired, and other venues—reporting from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Asia, and across the United States. His book, The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union, was published in 2013.
Tags:
Culture
Comments
Join the conversation
Share your thoughts and connect with other readers by becoming a paid subscriber!
Already a paid subscriber? Sign in

No posts

For Free People.
LatestSearchAboutCareersShopPodcastsVideoEvents
©2025 The Free Press. All Rights Reserved.Powered by Substack.
Privacy∙Terms∙Collection notice

Share

Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More