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Padres take action after gay men's chorus controversy

Liz Roscher
·Staff writer

The San Diego Padres are continuing their attempts to mend severely damaged fences after Saturday's embarrassing incident involving the San Diego Gay Men's Chorus. On Sunday night, the Padres released a statement saying that they had found "no evidence of malicious intent," though they have fired the third-party contractor they say was responsible for the error. They are also disciplining the employee who was responsible for Saturday's game production.

The full statement from the Padres is below:

"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 on both 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."

This is the second statement the Padres have issued since the incident took place Saturday. The chorus had been on the field and ready to sing the national anthem, but a recording of a woman singing played instead. The recording wasn't stopped, and when it was over, the chorus wasn't allowed to sing the anthem and they were escorted from the field to the sound of boos and homophobic taunts.

[Previously: Padres under fire after humiliating gay men's chorus during anthem]

The Padres released a brief statement shortly after the incident (while the game was still going on), and it was heavily criticized by the director of the San Diego Gay Men's Chorus, Bob Lehman. You can read his full response to the Padres here.

According to the Padres' official twitter account, the chorus has been invited back.

As of now, there are no additional details on the invitation itself, and whether the chorus has accepted.

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher