On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance chimed in on Major League Baseball's frustration with three San Francisco Giants pitchers who wore Bible verses on their Pride Night caps during Friday's game. In response to MLB's warning that this behavior would not be tolerated in the future, Vance wrote on Tuesday afternoon, "Trump won we don't have to do this anymore."
MLB clarified in a statement to The Athletic on Tuesday that "this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message. … We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as 'Dad,' 'Happy Mother's Day, I Love Mom' and names of family members."
Vance's post is not solely focused on the MLB's uniform policy. The exchange over these baseball caps at Pride Night raises a question that large American institutions are now navigating: whether diversity and inclusion programs and initiatives are legitimate social policy or, as Vance and his allies argue, a political imposition now being reversed.
Reactions to Vance's Comments
Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, told HuffPost, "When JD Vance says, 'Trump won, we don't have to do this anymore,' he's setting this up as a win-lose situation, and that's the problem. There is no win or lose when it comes to celebrating human rights, and there is no in between. You're either for human rights, or you're not. Nobody wins when you shut down inclusion."
Republicans Rally Around the Pitchers
In addition to Vance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) filed a formal letter on Tuesday to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, accusing the league of a "pattern of discrimination" against Christian players. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) posted that the Texas Rangers are the only MLB team without a Pride Night and that they host a Family Night instead because "we don't punish people for living out their faith," while Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier publicly threatened legal action against MLB on X and questioned whether the MLB's practices were "religious discrimination." The office of the vice president did not respond to HuffPost's request for comment as of publishing.
The Bible Verse Explained
Pitcher Landen Roupp had "Gen 9:12-16" written on his hat in white letters, referring to the Bible verse Genesis 9:12-16. MLB's chief communications officer Pat Courtney told The Athletic on Monday, "The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations."
Relief pitchers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker also had Bible verses on their hats, while reliever Sam Hentges opted to wear the standard black and orange cap instead of the Pride Night one. Pitcher Erik Miller did wear the Pride cap with no inscription. Hentges told reporters "there wasn't hatred behind" why he didn't wear the Pride Night cap, but that he felt "forced to support when I don't morally support it."
The Giants became the first MLB team to incorporate Pride themes and colors into their on-field uniforms during Pride Night in 2021. Friday night's game was the first time that a Giants player had declined to wear the rainbow-colored cap (shortstop Nick Ahmed had written a Bible verse on his hat in 2024). When asked why he wore a Bible verse, Roupp said, "It's just about God's covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy."
He continued, "That's just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I'm thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want … and express what we want."
The Giants issued an official statement on Saturday saying they "understand that the choices by individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that." However, they added that they "respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations."
The Bible verse on the hats has been commonly used by some conservative Christian circles as a way to "reclaim" the rainbow from the LGBTQ+ community. Sen. Scott Wiener (D-Calif.) made that connection in his X post on Friday night, writing the verse was "about rainbows that is frequently used by right-wing Christians to 'take back' the rainbow from LGBTQ people."
Vance's History with DEI Initiatives
For Vance, leaning directly into digital culture wars and legislative rollbacks has long been a core element of his political strategy to cut back on DEI initiatives. Vance has made cultural debates a focus of his public role. He has long fought against DEI initiatives, which he told Fox News in December that he believes were meant to function as "institutional overreach" and, as he said on X on Dec. 17, "was a deliberate program of discrimination against white men." At Turning Point USA's annual conference on Dec. 21, Vance said, "We have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belonged."
On June 18, 2025, Vance created an account on Bluesky, the X-alternative social media platform that is predominantly liberal, according to the Pew Research Center. In his first post, Vance shared the U.S. Supreme Court opinion that upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. "I found Justice Clarence Thomas's concurrence on medical care for transgender youth quite illuminating," Vance wrote. "He argues that many of our so-called 'experts' have used bad arguments and substandard science to push experimental therapies on our youth."
Within days, Vance became the most blocked account on the platform. Vance posted screenshots of his Bluesky posts on X, to which followers praised him for being "King of Troll" and for making "the libs … so triggered." On June 12, 2024, Vance, who was a Senator (R-Ohio) at the time, introduced the Dismantle DEI Act in the Senate alongside a companion bill in the House of Representatives, which aimed to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and funding at the federal level. "The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division," Vance said in a statement, The Hill reported. "It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society."
