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San Diego Padres take action, apologize for humiliating gay chrous

San Diego Padres take action, apologize for humiliating gay chrous
The San Diego Padres baseball team is offering a do-over to the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus, and a meeting to formally apologize for this past weekend’s embarrassing incident at Petco Park, which the team awkwardly dubbed an “unintentional mistake:” the drowning out of the men’s live performance with a recording by a female singer.

The team had invited the chorus to sing the National Anthem to open the annual “Out at the Park” game Saturday evening, but instead of the strong voices of the 100 men assembled in center field, the 40,000 fans in attendance heard a recording of a woman singing the Star-Spangled Banner over the stadium speakers. And it was the whole song, from “Oh, say…” to “home of the brave.” The stunned singers, who had planned all along to accompany a recording of their own voices playing over Petco’s public address system, were then escorted off the field to homophobic taunts from fans, including “You sing like a girl.”

As news of the incident sparked anger among activists and made headlines around the world over the weekend, the team attempted to respond to critics with tweets about investigations, while the chorus itself posted its own account of the embarrassing incident on its Facebook page. The post brought to light other troubling details, such as pressure applied by the team to the volunteer chorus members to buy tickets just to take to the field to sing, whether or not they intended to stay for the game. None did, although the chorus did promote Saturday’s event on that same Facebook page, likely influencing fans and supporters to buy tickets.

The chorus called on the Padres, Major League Baseball, the San Diego city attorney’s office and the city’s Human Relations Commission to investigate.

San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus Executive Director Bob Lehman told The New York Times the team’s chief executive, Mike Dee, spoke with him personally and was sincerely apologetic. According to Lehman, the regular technician who should have played the chorus’s recording was involved in a car crash Friday night, and that a substitute was in the control room.

“Somebody didn’t know how to press the stop button?” Lehman asked The Times, rhetorically. “I couldn’t believe a professional organization like that didn’t know what to do.”

According to the Padres, its internal investigation found no evidence of malicious intent and that it has fired a third-party contractor the team said was responsible for the mistake. The team also said it had taken disciplinary action against one employee responsible for game production.

In its post on Facebook, the chorus applauded the Padres for its apology and for reaching out. But that may not be enough. Lehman said in a statement to San Diego Gay & Lesbian News, “We were founded 31 years ago to fight for social justice–to be heard loud and proud as openly gay men. Last night, our voices were silenced, but out of this we will be heard even louder than ever before.”

Lehman indicated the chorus and “LGBT leaders” have accepted an invitation to meet with the Padres organization “to build bridges within the LGBT community rather than burn them down.”

Read the team’s statement and apology, below, and click here for the chorus’s statement.

 

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