I'm Ashamed of My Hometown
San Diego, get your shit together.
Each year at the Padres stadium, Petco Park, the LGBT society in SD holds an event called "Out at the Park" that is meant to bring the community together for an evening of baseball.
This year, Petco Park really, really screwed up. The San Diego Men's Gay Chorus was meant to sing the national anthem before the game to represent the LGBT community for this event. Their voices were never heard.
The stadium let them take the field, and then as they were about to sing, a recorded female voice instead sang the anthem (which, if you've been to a Padres game, isn't something that happens - we always have live singing)
The men had to walk off the field hearing people shouting profane, homophobic things at them. The Padres said it was a mistake, a technical error, a third party contractor, and that they were sorry. But that doesn't explain the other examples of mistreatment.
Days prior to the game, the Padres organization told the performers that the chorus would have to pay for their tickets in order to sing.
This is not something that happens, ever. If you perform the national anthem, you get to enter the park for free, DUH. Why did the Padres suddenly want this now?
That would have cost the small organization thousands of dollars, and after dispute they were finally allowed in as performers.
You can listen to their great voices here when they performed in 2015. It's a pity their voices weren't heard this year.
Get it together Padres, you're a disappointment in baseball but don't be a disappointment to your entire community.
