A local sports TV station rejected Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s ad blasting an anti-Catholic LGBT organization invited to participate in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Pride event, Fox News reported.
Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC reserved a 30-second spot last Friday to play during the Dodgers vs. Giants game on Spectrum SportsNet LA, according to Fox News. The senator said the ad was sent to the station Tuesday but got rejected without explanation.
Spectrum SportsNet LA refused to run our ad about the anti-Christian hate group being honored by the @Dodgers tomorrow
https://t.co/nS7DdC8RW0— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 15, 2023
The ad showed a clip of a Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence member tied to a cross as a shirtless man did a pole dance on the cross, according to Fox News.
“Tonight the Dodgers aren’t celebrating pride they are promoting bigotry,” Rubio says in the ad. “The so-called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are not community heroes. They are nothing more than an anti-Catholic hate group.”
The senator condemned the station for rejecting the ad and accused them of accepting a “hatred of Christianity.”
“The Dodgers are honoring an anti-Catholic hate group as community heroes, but they’re afraid of airing an ad showing these so-called sisters out in the community,” Rubio told Fox News. “It tells you everything you need to know about the Dodgers, Major League Baseball, and the media. They are no longer demanding tolerance, they now promote intolerance and even hatred of Christianity.”
Rubio has continued to be a major voice in opposing the Dodgers for inviting the group to its Pride event after initially rescinding their invitation over their mockery of Catholicism. The group describe themselves as a “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns” and sexualize Jesus Christ and nuns.
The Florida senator teamed up with Catholic groups to disinvite the group, prompting the Dodgers to disinvite them. The team later re-invited them and offered their “sincerest apologies” to the group and the LGBT community. (RELATED: Mike Pence Slams Dodgers For Inviting Anti-Catholic Drag Group To Pride Night Ahead Of Presidential Announcement)
“Shamefully, (but not surprisingly) the @dodgers have been bullied into apologizing to & ‘re-inviting’ a group of anti-catholic bigots,” Rubio wrote after the team re-invited the group. “Today our great country is controlled by socio-political ruling elites who don’t just tolerate anti-Christian bigotry, they encourage & celebrate it.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asked for the church to pray for the “spiritual damage” done by the Dodgers inviting the anti-Catholic group to the event in a June 12 statement. They asked for fellow Catholics to honor the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and pray for “an act of reparation for the blasphemies against our Lord.”
CatholicVote, who condemned the initial invite, criticized the team for re-inviting the group, saying the team “will now celebrate ‘go and sin some more’ anti-Catholic bigotry. This is a slap in the face of every Catholic.”