LGBTQ+ fans are devastated that the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars canceled their Pride Night for the upcoming season, but right-wingers are celebrating the move as evidence that “not every sport is woke.”
The anti-LGBTQ+ Family Research Council (FRC) shared an article in its Washington Stand publication celebrating that the Stars are done with Pride “after a half-decade of rainbow-drenched celebrations.”
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The article referred to Pride night as “political extremism” and “LGBT indoctrination” and celebrated those who “have been fueling these changes with their grassroots pressure campaign.”
In place of Pride Night, the Stars’ promotional calendar lists a “Hockey Unites Night” on March 23. A statement from the team explaining the change says the new event “allows our organization to use our platform to celebrate and support a different underrepresented community each season.” This year’s will be women in sports.
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Izzy, a 21-year-old lesbian and trans fan, told LGBTQ Nation’s sister publication Outsports that they feel “betrayed” by the changes.
“In 2023 I went to my first Pride game,” Izzy said, “the Dallas Stars versus the Seattle Kraken. This was the first game I felt like I could be me without judgment, as I came out about a year or two before the game. It was a beautiful blend of both sides of me. Even though we lost 5-4 in overtime, it was probably my most memorable and favorite game I went to. More than ever we need this representation.”
But according to FRC Fellow Ken Blackwell, the Pride Night cancellation is “an appropriate pullback from the fiduciary suicide that [professional sports] was committing.”
He added, “This sort of ‘advocacy athleticism’ is just a slippery slope.”
Joseph Backholm, another FRC fellow, said celebrating LGBTQ+ people is actually “deeply intolerant.”
“When enough courageous athletes refused to comply, they forced these teams to justify their decision to order athletes to participate in a leftist political movement as a condition of employment,” Backholm claimed. “They had a hard time justifying it and alienated a lot of fans in the process.”
Stefan Padfield, a senior fellow at the anti-LGBTQ+ Heritage Foundation, also shared with FRC that the Stars’ decision is “a win” for “all people who believe in biological truth and defending women and children from gender ideology.”
He added, “The Dallas Stars have apparently had enough of trying to convince fans that there are 72 genders,” and claimed, “reality is ultimately undefeated and will continue to rack up wins as we work our way back to sanity.”
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