NFL condemns Harrison Butker’s sexist, anti-LGBTQ graduation speech: We’re ‘steadfast in our commitment to inclusion’
The National Football League condemned Harrison Butker’s sexist and anti-LGBTQ graduation speech at Benedictine College over the weekend.
“Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity,” the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Jonathan Beane, told People Wednesday.
“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’s statement comes four days after the Kansas City Chiefs player, 28, delivered his controversial speech at the private Catholic college in Atchison, Kan., on Saturday.
During his address, Butker said he’s “gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind” before attacking “dangerous gender ideologies” and President Joe Biden’s “bad policies and poor leadership.”
“Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder,” he added.
The three-time Super Bowl champ then addressed the women in the graduating class, telling them that their “most important title” should be “homemaker.”
“Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world,” he said.
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
Butker further encouraged the male graduates to “be unapologetic in your masculinity” and “fight against the cultural emasculation of men.”
The football kicker also brought up his teammate Travis Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, during his speech by using a lyric from her 2022 song “Bejeweled.”
“As my teammate’s girlfriend says, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt,'” he said.
Butker was slammed for his controversial remarks.
“Harrison Butker doesn’t represent Kansas City nor has he ever. Kansas City has always been a place that welcomes, affirms, and embraces our LGBTQ+ community members,” former county commissioner Justice Horn wrote on X.
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement to Page Six that Butker’s speech was “not only a clear miss, it was inaccurate, ill-informed, and woefully out of step with Americans about Pride, LGBTQ people and women.”
Other users questioned why the NFL star had such misogynistic views about women having careers when his mother, Elizabeth Keller Butker, was an accomplished physicist.
