The screaming hoards of the Left are big mad that a handful of players for Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants protested the team’s LGBTQ+ hats during last week’s “Pride Night.” Four players protested the club’s enforced conformity in the June 12 game against the Chicago Cubs. Three of them — Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker — referenced Genesis 9:12-16 or Genesis 9:13-15 on their hats, and the fourth, Sam Hentges, wore his team’s regular hat that didn’t sport rainbow colors.

“It’s just something that I feel like I was forced to support when I don’t morally support it,” Hentges told reporters. “There wasn’t hatred behind it. I think that’s kind of something that’s misinterpreted. I don’t hate the LGBTQ community.”

For this, the players have been raked over the coals. The Athletic magazine senior writer Grant Brisbee angrily criticized the move as a “us vs. them” controversy and said the players were missing the point. Except that the Rainbow Mafia is more like a religion than an “oppressed identity group.”

The Giants apologized for the players. “Baseball should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued,” the team said in a statement. “We also respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations. We understand that the choices by individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that.”

Major League Baseball (MLB) has several commemorative days with special jerseys. On Mother’s Day, the games are played in pink-and-gray uniforms to support breast cancer awareness. On Father’s Day, players wear blue somewhere on their jerseys in support of prostate cancer awareness. MLB also celebrates Jackie Robinson Day, Lou Gehrig’s Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, and Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. While individual “Pride Night” celebrations are determined by each team (all but one club take part), the fact that the LGBTQ+ lobby is so dedicated to recognition and celebration by an organization that has nothing to do with sexual “identity” or behavior is telling.

Notice how the rest of the universal commemorative days focus on fighting a terrible illness or on supporting and honoring heroes. What has the LGBTQ+ community done in the pursuit of “sexual liberation” that has made this country a better place? Do commonsense Americans believe that killing homosexuals, as they do in parts of the Middle East, is morally abhorrent? Yes. Should we allow them to hijack major sporting events to flaunt their sexual preferences/perversions? Absolutely not.

Interestingly, the Giants players’ scriptural reference isn’t even one in which the Bible condemns homosexuality (though plenty of other passages do). Genesis 9:12-16 says:

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

As Washington Stand senior writer Joshua Arnold observes, this scriptural reference is analogous to a version of X’s “Community Note.” It reminds everyone that the rainbow doesn’t belong to the LGBTQ+ community, which has co-opted it for its own rebellious purposes. The rainbow belongs to God. It is a covenant between God and Noah promising never again to flood the Earth.

It is a symbol of grace. The bow (like the weapon) is pointed away from the Earth. God’s wrath against a humanity that continues to sin, lie, and destroy is spared, giving everyone time to repent and come to know God.

However, as Arnold also points out, it isn’t a symbol of a weak and spineless deity. “In other words,” he explains, “the rainbow is a symbol of God’s grace. But it is also a reminder that God is not a flabby and blind deity who winks at evil. God brought judgment on the sinful world of Noah’s day, and he will bring judgment again. The only way to escape the coming judgment is to repent and believe in God’s chosen Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will shelter his followers from the coming storm. But those who follow him must also leave behind their sin.”

Pride is the deadliest of all sins. It is what brought Lucifer down. The belief that you are better than others — or even better than God — is the direct road to hell.

The Rainbow Mafia would have us believe that sexual identities are not a lifestyle choice. Yet all people struggle with sin from the day they are born. Some wrestle with lust, envy, hatred, wrath, sloth, gluttony, and/or pride. We each have a choice: give in to the sin, or fight against that innate urge, turn to Christ, and win. It is a direct indication of which deity you are serving: the god of self, or the gracious God of the universe that aims His wrath away from His children, whom He deeply loves.

MLB has decided to address the players who have or are considering peacefully protesting the LGBTQ+ lobby. Chief Communications Officer Pat Courtney said in a statement, “The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations.” While the consequences for other “violations” aren’t specified, one can imagine that fines and more stringent measures will be enforced.

It should be noted that Courtney’s statement is abjectly hypocritical. In the past, MLB didn’t say a word when players wrote messages on their uniforms. For example, during the 2025 World Series, players wrote “#51” on their hats in support of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia, whose wife lost their newborn daughter right before the series began. Blake Treinen, another Dodgers pitcher, wrote Charlie Kirk’s name with two crosses on his hat after the activist was assassinated.

Senator Josh Hawley noted other examples in a letter to MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred. “What does MLB think it’s doing penalizing players for their Christian faith?” he asked. “They owe us some answers. Right now.”

It’s only when Christians stand up for their beliefs that this sort of display becomes a problem for MLB.

Thankfully, comedian Rob Schneider has promised that if any of these players expressing their First Amendment rights are punished, he will support them. “I will pay the fines for any @MLB Christian player who wears a Bible verse on their uniform,” Schnieder pledged in a social media post. “@MLB is ANTI-CHRISTIAN.”

Major League Baseball, like the National Football League, is still on the culture war bandwagon — and will remain so as long as it’s profitable. Hopefully, the rest of the country can shout loud enough for these jokers to hear, We’ve had enough of the religion of woke. Let’s return to normalcy.