COLORADO ROCKIES GO EVANGELICAL

From AlterNet:

In a remarkable article from USA Today last week, the Colorado Rockies went public with the news that the organization has been explicitly looking for players with "character." And according to the Tribe of Coors, "character" means accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. "We're nervous, to be honest with you," Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd said. "It's the first time we ever talked about these issues publicly. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone because of our beliefs." When people are nervous that they will offend you with their beliefs, it's usually because their beliefs are offensive.

And

Then there are the fans. I spoke with journalist Tom Krattenmaker, who has studied the connection between religion and sports. Krattenmaker said, "I have concerns about what this Christianization of the Rockies means for the community that supports the team in and around Denver--a community in which evangelical Christians are probably a minority, albeit a large and influential one. Taxpayers and ticket-buyers in a religiously diverse community have a right not to see their team--a quasi-public resource--used for the purpose of advancing a specific form of religion. Have the Colorado Rockies become a faith-based organization? This can be particularly problematic when the religion in question is one that makes exclusive claims and sometimes denigrates the validity of other belief systems."

You might think MLB Commissioner Bud Selig would have something stirring to say about this issue. But Selig, who hasn't actually registered a pulse since 1994, only said meekly, "They have to do what they feel is right."

Click here for the rest.

Certainly, most American organizations "have the right to do what they feel is right." But professional baseball is a special case. As the article observes, baseball is a "quasi-public resource" in that there are a lot of tax dollars used to create the economic context, such as stadiums, tax breaks, and special infrastructure, necessary for owners to make money. While treated to a great extent as private business, big league baseball is in deep with the public sector. So deep, in fact, that professional baseball has been granted anti-trust exemption by Congress: it is a legal monopoly, and therefore subject to federal regulation. Baseball is anything but a normal business; rather, it is probably best described as a phantom limb of government. Consequently, this fundamentalist Christianization of the Rockies is very troubling. Never mind the fact that it is illegal for a business to discriminate on the basis of religion, which is what the Colorado team appears to be doing as far as employment practices are concerned; organizations taking government money are Constitutionally required to remain secular, Bush's "faith-based" charities scam notwithstanding. In other words, the new fundamentalist nature of the Rockies may very well be extremely illegal.

Stepping away for a moment from the legal ramifications, this ball club going all churchy is disturbing for, perhaps, an even bigger reason. This appears to be a new manifestation of right-wing Christianity's attempt to twist the values of this nation in their sick direction. As I've said before, it is every American's right to worship or not as they see fit, as well as trying to spread whatever their philosophy is to others, but this attempt to undermine secular society is unAmerican, dangerous to democracy, and just plain wrong. Egad, what's next? Christian liquor stores? I sure hope not.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$