Kansas Metropolis Chiefs coach Andy Reid is standing by Harrison Butker following the kicker’s extremely criticized graduation speech.
“I didn’t discuss to him about [the speech]. We’re a microcosm of life right here, from totally different areas, totally different religions, races and so all of us get alongside and all of us respect one another’s opinions,” Reid, 66, mentioned throughout a Wednesday, Might 22, press convention. “We respect everyone to have a voice, that’s the wonderful thing about America.”
Butker sparked controversy earlier this month when he spoke to graduates of Benedictine School in Atchison, Kansas, and singled out the feminine graduates.
“For the women current in the present day, congratulations on a tremendous accomplishment,” he mentioned. “You need to be pleased with all that you’ve achieved thus far in your younger lives. I need to converse on to you briefly as a result of I feel it’s you, the ladies, who’ve had probably the most diabolical lies instructed to you.”
Kansas Metropolis Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is going through backlash after his controversial commencement speech. Butker, 28, was the graduation speaker at Benedictine School on Saturday, Might 11. The athlete first raised eyebrows when he addressed the ladies graduates to invoke stereotypical gender roles. “I need to converse on to you briefly as a result of I feel it […]
Harrison mentioned he would “enterprise to guess” that the “majority” of the feminine graduates current have been “most enthusiastic about your marriage and the youngsters you’ll deliver into this world” versus “all of the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your profession.”
Butker additionally ranted about President Joe Biden, the dealing with of the COVID pandemic and the way the “rising assist for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of dysfunction.” He in contrast the LGBTQ+ group’s Satisfaction Month to “lethal sins.”
The athlete, who was seen practising throughout Wednesday’s OTA Media Look, confronted backlash from Kansas Metropolis Chiefs followers and public figures alike. “My curiosity received piqued this week … What level was Harrison Butker actually attempting to make to girls in his commencement speech about their current day life selections? Did he actually need them, aka us, to consider that our lives actually solely start once we lean into the vocation of spouse and mom?” Maria Shriver started in a prolonged publish by way of X on Might 15.
She added, “I feel it’s demeaning to girls to suggest that their selections outdoors of spouse and motherhood pale compared to that of a homemaker.”
Paving the way in which. LGBTQ+ athletes have been breaking down obstacles and difficult prejudices for many years, but it surely wasn’t all the time simple. Tennis participant and LGBTQ+ rights advocate Billie Jean King received the well-known “Battle of the Sexes” match in opposition to Bobby Riggs in 1973, greater than 40 years earlier than same-sex marriage turned authorized all through the US. […]
Brooke Schwartz — who’s married to retired Chiefs offensive sort out Mitch Schwartz — additionally slammed the athlete in a sequence of since-expired Instagram Tales.
“That is what we’re telling younger girls graduating school? That crucial factor they will turn out to be is a homemaker???” she wrote. “What within the Handmaid’s Story is that this crap?”
The NFL has since distanced itself from Butker’s feedback, saying in a press release this month that “his views will not be these of the NFL as a corporation.”
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes additionally shared his ideas on the speech throughout Wednesday’s convention, telling reporters, “I’ve recognized him for seven years. I choose him by the character he exhibits daily and that’s particular person. … We’re not all the time going to agree. He mentioned sure issues I don’t agree with.”
