Anthony Bass is a professional athlete that currently plays for the Toronto Blue Jays as a pitcher. He also is now under attack for daring to repost, on his Instagram story, a post calling for boycotts of Target and Bud Light.
That post, from “dudewithgoodnews,” was about the Biblical reasons that Christians need to support boycotts of companies like Target and Bud Light. The caption to the video, addressed to Target, said, “we will expose your works of darkness.” Continuing, the caption then said, “Target has begun pushing the message of transitioning to young people and teamed up with a satanist to push pro Satan clothing and pins to children.” It ended by arguing that the “enemy,” by which it meant the Devil, “isn’t even hiding” at this point.
In the clip, Ryan Miller, the man speaking, claimed that he would “expose the darkness” that Target and woke corporations like it is “shoving into children’s faces.”
He then goes on to cite Ephesians Chapter 5, which says, in part, “For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible.”
Let’s see what Anthony Bass is up to on Instagram pic.twitter.com/Ppv4Ubx1S1
— whyjays believer (@JohnnyGiuntaa) May 29, 2023
Predictably, people on Twitter were furious that a Christian had dared post something that he thought was the correct thing to do from a Christian faith perspective. One, for example, said, “I really hope the blue jays use him to model their pride giveaway jerseys.” Another said, “Wonder if he’ll be pitching for the Jays on Pride day in TO? Did he not learn from the popcorn incident? Or maybe he did and likes the attention.” Still another said, “This is someone we want on our team? Serious question.” Numerous other comments argued, in that vein, that Bass is a poor choice for the Blue Jays because of his conservative opinion.
The reference to “pride giveaway jerseys” is from an event the Bluejays will be hosting on June 9th for Pride month: at the event, the first 15,000 Bluejays fans to enter the stadium will be given a rainbow version of the Blue Jays jersey.
Other commenters stood up for him and regarded the situation, particularly the vitriolic criticism directed Bass’ way, as ridiculous. One, for example, said, “Can nobody have there own opinions these days? Who cares.” Similarly, another feigned outrage at the idea that conservatives in a sport with a conservative fan base express their opinions occasionally, saying, “No way? The sport with, arguably, the strongest conservative base HAS conservatives within the league? And those players are sharing their conservative opinions?”
The Blue Jays predictably took the side of the woke commenters on Twitter that were furious about Bass expressing his faith-based opinions rather than the conservative free speech advocates, saying, “The Blue Jays are proud to celebrate LGBTQ2S+ Pride Month.”
Featured image credit: By EricEnfermero – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33738245
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