Groups of
Christians and conservatives gathered outside the San
Diego Padres' Petco Park to protest Pride Night, an event
for gays and lesbians, on Saturday, according to
The San Diego Union-Tribune.
"We're here to
inform parents, to warn them about what's happening
inside [the ballpark]," James Hartline, a self-described
Christian activist who spearheaded the protest, told
the Union-Tribune. "Bringing together homosexuals
with baseball and kids is beyond bounds. We're trying to get
people to turn around, not go to the game, and we're
succeeding."
Contrary to
Hartline's claim, the stadium was actually filled near
capacity. Of the 42,685 seats available, 41,026 were filled,
the article reports.
J.D. Loveland, a
development director of Set Free Ministries, a Christian
group based in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, announced
in June that his company would withdraw 42 workers
from Petco concession stands to object to Pride Night.
"We are not
boycotting. We are not protesting," Loveland said in
the article. He continued, "But our bottom line is that
Christian folk believe in the sanctity of marriage as
stated in the Bible, one man and one woman.
Homosexuality is a sin, and promoting it with a Pride
Night when thousands of kids are also going to be [at the
ballpark] is wrong. So we took a moral stand. We're
not antigay. We're anti-anti-Christian."
One major gay
rights activist was unfazed by the protests.
"We're talking
about a baseball game. That's all this is," said Ron
deHarte, executive director of San Diego Pride, which bought
1,000 tickets for the game and advertised them on its
Web site as "Out at the Park with the San Diego
Padres, an official San Diego Pride event." (The
Advocate)