Girlfriend of @Athletics star offers to buy tix of fans upset about team's LGBTQ pride night: http://t.co/6dQoS7CO9b pic.twitter.com/bC6XGFd9kI
— KTVU (@KTVU) March 30, 2015
While acceptance of others (and their choices) is the ultimate goal when it comes to living in an ideal society, for some, even being able tolerate another’s way of life seems to be harder than one would think. As open minded United States may appear to be to the rest of the world (especially in comparison to many non-secular countries), a good portion of the population continues to stifle hate against those that fall under the LGBT banner. Let’s take a look at what has just perspired in the realm of baseball.
In late March, Oakland Athletics announced that they will serve as a home to the LGBT Pride Night – a great way to create awareness about the lifestyle on a grand scale, to show that they are no less human, and that we can all get along and have a great time. However many fans of the Athletics felt insulted by this and decided to take their homophobic agenda to….Twitter.
One person posted, “Parents, please note this is not a game you want to take your kids to.” Another read, “What other fetishes are we going to recognize at ballgames?” However the most creative of these read, “Are the players going to prance from base to base? Is the starting pitcher going to literally throw like a girl on purpose? Is the team going to have rainbow theme uniforms?”
Apart from the backlash upheld by the keyboard warriors, many insulted fans decided to sell their tickets; this is when something amazing happened. A’s pitcher Sean Doolittle girlfriend, Eireann Dolan, decided to purchase these tickets. On her blog, she wrote,
“So, A’s fans; if attending a baseball game on LGBT Pride Night makes you at all uncomfortable, it is probably a good idea to sell your tickets. And I have the perfect buyer. ME!
If you’d like to sell your tickets to June 17th’s LGBT Pride Night game, I will buy them from you at face value. As many as I can. No judgments. No questions asked.
From there, I will donate any tickets I purchase to the Bay Area Youth Center’s Our Space community for LGBTQ youth.”
To help get some financial help in her endeavors, she opened a GoFundMe account in hopes to raise the funds and declared that she would match donations up to $3000; her account raised over $6000 within a day! If you’re wondering why Dolan would go out of her way to take up such an venture; well, let’s say the issue of LGBT is one close to her than most people.
“Many people don’t know this about me, but I have two moms. My biological mom Kathy and her partner Elise (who grew up in the Bay Area) are both die-hard A’s fans as well as super gay. Like, they’re so gay for each other that they’ve fostered a long-term loving relationship likely no different from any heterosexual loving relationships you’ve seen or been a part of.”
What is interesting is that this is not the first time a sports team has held LGBT events in their stadiums; they are however of course not as common – they should as they help unify the community. We really wish that people would let go of any hatred towards the people of LGBT as it is an unnecessary social agenda that simply divides the nation further and keeps us from handling important issues like climate change.
For now, kudos to Eireann Dolan for setting a healthy example!