San Diego Padres Fire Contractor Responsible for Humiliating Gay Chorus Incident

Late Sunday night, the San Diego Padres apologized for the incident that took place on Saturday night at Petco Park and said they had ended their relationship with the contractor hired for handling it. They also took action against an employee responsible for the mishap.

As you may have read yesterday, The San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus was at the center of a disturbing incident that happened at Petco Park on Saturday night. Called upon to sing the Star-Spangled Banner, their singing was replaced by a recording of a woman (reportedly the anthem singer from the night before), nobody stopped it, and they were led off the field afterward while being taunted with “you sing like a girl” taunts from fans in the stands.

Said the Padres in their Sunday night statement:

“After a thorough examination of the events that occurred during last night’s National Anthem we have concluded our internal investigation and have found no evidence of malicious intent on the part of any individuals involved.

Based both on the unintentional mistake that was made, as well as the failure to immediately intervene and correct the situation by those who had oversight, we have terminated our relationship with the third-party contractor who was responsible for the error, and taken disciplinary action against our employee who was responsible for the game production on Saturday.

We once again sincerely apologize to members of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus, their families and those who came out to support their pride night performance. The Padres organization is proud of our longstanding commitment to inclusion – within both our sport and our community.

We deeply regret that a mistake on our part has called this into question, but accept full responsibility.”