Gov. Greg Abbott professed the state’s religious tolerance in a post on X after the Texas Rangers broke with other Major League Baseball teams by hosting a Faith and Family Night in lieu of a Pride Night.
The Republican governor’s tweet comes just a week after reporting by Texas Monthly laid out how his office had used a state agency to harass a Muslim community in North Texas.
“The Texas Rangers are the only team in Major League Baseball that doesn’t host a Pride Night. This week, they’re hosting Faith and Family Night instead,” Abbott said in the tweet. “Meanwhile, MLB just warned Giants pitchers for writing Bible verses on their own caps. In Texas, we don’t punish people for living out their faith. We protect that right.”
MLB’s website describes the Rangers’ Faith and Family night, set to take place this Thursday, when the team plays the Minnesota Twins, as an afternoon of community during which players will share personal testimonies about their faith.
Abbott’s post reflects his vocal support for religious freedom — for Christians. The governor’s track record of repeatedly targeting Texas’ Muslim community suggests those protections don’t extend beyond his own professed faith.
Indeed, Abbott’s office directed the state’s funeral commission to probe the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), a multi-ethnic mosque and community hub, on allegations that it offered Islamic funeral services without a license, according to Texas Monthly’s reporting. What’s more, his office directed the commission to continue pursuing the case even after the underlying allegations fell apart, the magazine found.
Members of Abbott’s team, including Budget and Policy Advisor Alex Aragon and General Counsel Trevor Ezell, worked unusually closely with the funeral commission to investigate EPIC, Texas Monthly reported.
The pair and other officials from Abbott’s office frequently checked in on the probe and encouraged action from the commission, going so far as to edit the language of documents to put more legal pressure on the mosque, according to the report.
In one such instance, on a recording of an April 2025 phone call obtained by Texas Monthly, Aragon can be heard advising Scott Bingaman, the former executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, to find ways to prevent licensing EPIC.
The Abbott staffer told Bingaman that the governor’s Office of General Counsel would look into state code to see if there were other ways to deny approval to the mosque, Texas Monthly reports. “The idea here is you don’t want them operating, period,” Aragon allegedly said.
This pressure from Abbott comes as anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise within his own state party. The Texas GOP recently turned its sights on the Muslim community, shifting fears away from immigration at the southern border and toward the alleged “Islamification” of Texas.
Abbott has been at the forefront of the anti-Muslim sentiment, announcing just last week at the state’s GOP convention that he’s working on a total state ban of sharia law, Islam’s religious and moral code. Earlier this year, the governor designated Muslim advocacy group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a terrorist organization despite little evidence to support his claim.
With all the hostile rhetoric and harassment Abbott has directed at Lone Star State Muslims, his tweet about a tolerant Texas falls flat. It’s hard to square an agenda focused on opposing Islam with comments defending religious freedom, unless some faiths matter more than others.
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