With this as background, we call on the San Diego Padres and Major League Baseball to immediately launch a full and transparent investigation into the incident to determine if someone or some people intentionally engaged in anti-gay discrimination or a hate crime by playing a female’s voice to represent a group of gay men with the purpose of denigrating and/or ridiculing gay men. The demand eventually was rescinded on Friday following repeated complaints made by SDGMC and San Diego Pride to San Diego Padres management. Three days before the game, San Diego Padres representatives aggressively sought to prevent singers from performing the National Anthem unless they purchased a ticket to the game-even if they did not plan to stay for the game-which was not part of any previous discussion or written or verbal agreement and would have cost the small, community-based non-profit thousands of dollars. This incident followed several days of troubling comments and behavior within the San Diego Padres organization. No attempt to correct the situation occurred other than to force the 100 men to stand in the spotlight of center field for the song’s duration and then be escorted off the field to the heckles of baseball fans shouting homophobic taunts including “You sing like a girl.” No announcement of apology was made to the singers or their friends and families in the stands. No attempt was made to stop the recording and start over.