Phillies Blasted for Promoting Homosexuality, Barring Biblical Views From Ballpark
by Jim Brown
August 23, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A Christian ministry says the Philadelphia Phillies is helping to advance the homosexual agenda while discriminating against those who express biblical views on homosexuality.
For the last four years, the Major League Baseball franchise in the City of Brotherly Love has been sponsoring "Gay Community Night" at the ballpark. In 2003 and 2004, the organization kicked out members of the Philadelphia-based Christian group Repent America for displaying a banner that read, "Homosexuality is sin, Christ can set you free."
This year, Repent America representatives distributed gospel literature and engaged in open air preaching outside Citizen's Bank Park. However, the Christian group's volunteers were not allowed to share their message within the stadium.
According to Repent America director Michael Marcavage, after pressure from homosexual activists last year, the Phillies changed their banner policy. According to the revised guidelines, the ballpark now prohibits all banners and signs that "bear a message that contains derogatory matter relating to ... sexual orientation," and also took steps to bar Repent America representatives from entering the ballpark.
"In fact," Marcavage notes, "the Phillies officials even went to the extreme of searching their databases for ticket purchases associated with Repent America to ensure that the access to us would be denied." In other words, he asserts, the Phillies organization has now declared that the biblical message of freedom from homosexuality through Jesus Christ is "derogatory," and those who conveyed that message in the past have apparently been declared unwelcome.
As a result, the ministry spokesman says, this year Repent America was barred from bringing its banner into Citizen's Bank Park on Gay Community Night. However, he questions whether the franchise's viewpoint-specific ban is lawful.
"Because this is a city-owned ballpark and they have a banner policy," Marcavage contends, "their banner policy should not be content-based in saying that some messages are okay and others are not." And he believes the policy's allowance of arbitrary distinctions between messages, permitting certain perspectives while disfavoring others, is exactly where the problem comes in.
"They're allowing one group of people to promote homosexuality," the Repent America director says, "so they should allow another group to say, 'No, this is not the way that God intended people to live.'" But instead, he charges, the Philadelphia Phillies organization is promoting homosexuality while censoring the free expression of Christian activists who oppose homosexual sin on the basis of their biblical beliefs.
Marcavage says he finds it heartbreaking that the Phillies franchise continues to expose children to "this perverse lifestyle" in what ought to be a family-friendly environment. Meanwhile, he adds, it is apparent the organization's promotion of homosexuality is not helping the Phillies' game any since they have lost to their opponents every year on Gay Community Night.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
