Methodists Prefer Pirates to Braves

As I was driving through San Diego today, I heard yet another piece of silly lefty church policy in action, and I was able to find the press release announcing it. It seems that the United Methodist Church has had to move their 2012 general meeting from Richmond, VA to Tampa, FL. Why? Because Richmond has a minor league baseball team known as the Braves. This is the announcement from the official Methodist press release:

Citing a church policy regarding meeting in cities that are home to professional sports teams with Native American names, The United Methodist Commission on the General Conference has retracted its selection of Richmond as the site of the 2012 General Conference and named Tampa as the new meeting site.

The 2012 General Conference will be held April 25 to May 4 in the 600,000 square foot Tampa Convention Center.

At the time of the initial selection, commission members were unaware that Richmond is home to the Richmond Braves, a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Atlanta Braves.

The General Conference is The United Methodist Church's top legislative body. Every four years, nearly 1,000 delegates from around the world gather to set church law and vote on hundreds of issues related to church life. The 2004 General Conference took place in Pittsburgh.

A resolution passed by the 2004 General Conference called for United Methodist agencies and organizations to avoid holding meetings and events in cities that sponsor sport teams using Native America names and symbols. "The United Methodist Church rejects the use of Native American names and symbols for sport teams, and considers the practice a blatant expression of racism," stated the resolution.

"We reviewed many issues when considering the finalists, but the name of the minor league sports team never came up in our discussions," said Gail Murphy-Geiss of Centennial, Colo., chair of the Commission on the General Conference. "We had earlier eliminated Atlanta from consideration because it was home to the major league baseball team, the Braves.

"When the minor league Braves issue was quickly brought to our attention after the original announcement, we believed we were obligated to revisit the issue.

While the church has their undies in a knot over Native American team names, they apparently have no problems with the thieves and murderers who used to plunder and kill across the high seas. Why do I say that? Because the nickname of the Tampa Bay football team is the Buccaneers, and in 2004, the Methodists met in Pittsburgh, home of the baseball Pirates.

Actually, of all the Native American nicknames I can think of, "Braves" is probably the least offensive (Warriors is good, too). The word "Braves" brings to mind all kinds of noble attributes that could be ascribed to the early Americans, and in fact, I'll be most Native Americans wouldn't have any problems with that name at all. Just because the local ballclub is called the Braves, doesn't mean the Methodist delegates have to do the "Tomahawk Chop" after each communion.

Oh, by the way, the name of the Tampa Bay baseball team: The Devil-Rays.