The Kansas City Chiefs kicker got no love from the league after his polarizing remarks.
The NFL on Wednesday issued a measured rebuke of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker for his ultraconservative blather during a college graduation speech.
Butker had slammed abortion rights, the LGBTQ+ community and diversity initiatives, while also suggesting that women should be far more eager to become homemakers than to pursue careers.
In his remarks to Kansas’ Benedictine College on Saturday, he even managed to tick off fans of singer Taylor Swift by referring to her merely as teammate Travis Kelce’s “girlfriend.”
The image-conscious league finally hit back in a statement to multiple outlets.
“Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, said in the statement. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”
The league, which is the dominant team-sport entity in the U.S., appeared to focus on Butker citing Pride month as one of the “deadly sins,” as well as his pontificating on “dangerous gender ideologies” and the “tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion.”
He also said that President Joe Biden supports “the murder of innocent babies.”
“Bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues,” he said. “Things like abortion, IVF [in vitro fertilization], surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media, all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.”
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