On Tuesday, in a post regarding Christian Family Day at Busch Stadium, I noted that "Given our society's penchant for outrage it's not hard to imagine someone making a fuss about this sort of thing."Guess what? People are making a fuss over this sort of thing.
Today, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher argues that such events are a bad idea. Why? Um, because a local rabbi has a major beef with Baseball Chapel, an organization that was once affiliated with the Nats which did something he didn't like. Does Baseball Chapel have anything to do with the Faith Night event? No. Does that seem to matter to Fisher? No.
Look, the closest I ever get to a churchgoing experience is listening to Procal Harum albums. I am not a Christian. I don't believe what they believe, and I don't think religion has a place in politics. When it comes to this kind of stuff, you can't get farther to the left of me without falling off the page.
But I also see no harm in baseball teams offering ticket packages to religious groups and providing a non-mandatory, non-subsidized post-game forum for whatever those groups feel like doing short of human sacrifice (I think I read that the Episcopalians are doing that now). It's less offensive than the kiss-cam, dot races, and dancing groundskeepers. At the very least, if ballparks are going to allow me to combine my dual passions for baseball and beer in one location, I don't see why they shouldn't allow others to combine their passions as well.
