Photo: Chicago White Sox
Liam Hendriksis all about celebrating theLGBTQ community.
In January of last year, the 33-year-old pitcher was close to signing a contract to play with the Chicago White Sox following five seasons with the Oakland Athletics.
While negotiating the terms of his deal, the MLB star asked the team if they held an annual “Pride Night” in June, according toThe Athletic.
“It wasn’t a demand,” Hendriks told the outlet. “It was a simple question of, ‘Do you guys have a Pride Night?’ And if you don’t, that will be something that we need to look into that working out, making sure that we can handle it, because I don’t want to go necessarily to a team that doesn’t do it.”
“It’s something that I’ve believed in,” he added.
“The biggest thing is making sure that hopefully, it starts more of a trend of other people willing to do it,” he told the outlet.
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“And then the more people that are willing to do it, the more people are willing to come out publicly and say, ‘I’m fine with this.’ And I’m hoping it strengthens the resolve of those people who may be on the fence about coming out, that may be on the fence of telling family, friends, peers or teammates or anything like that and fully embrace that,” he added.
After raising a Pride flag during last year’s Pride Night at the team’s stadium, Hendriks says he received a share of negative responses that reinforced his view that Pride Night is necessary.
Hendriks said he has “always been very vocal about” supporting the LGBTQ community because “it’s just being a decent human being.”
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Rays pitcher Jason Adam told the outlet that the decision was a “faith-based” one, saying: “A lot of it comes down to faith. So it’s a hard decision. Because ultimately we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here.”
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The 30-year-old also told the outlet he and others did not feel comfortable wearing the rainbow logos because “maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus.”
“[Jesus] encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like [Jesus] encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage — it’s no different,” he explained to the newspaper.
source: people.com
