What a great country, this America. You can disagree with the — checks notes — kicker from the Kansas City Chiefs, and your life still moves on!
With your career prospects intact. Your college diploma not ripped up.
Yet disputation isn’t enough for some Americans, who want payback simply because they find someone else’s personal values offensive.
According to the news cycle and social media hysteria, the Chiefs’ three-time Super Bowl-winning kicker, Harrison Butker, has outed himself as a misogynistic guardian of Gilead from “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
He might even be the manufacturer of the robes. And he needs to be punished.
All this spilled forth during a commencement speech he delivered at Benedictine College, a Catholic liberal arts school in Atchison, Kansas, over the weekend.
Butker, you see, is a devout Catholic: a Traditional Latin Mass-going Big C. In his speech, the married father-of-three delivered pro-family, pro-life Catholic fare.
He praised his wife, Isabelle, saying her “most important role” is “homemaker.” (Ahem, “stay at home mom” is the proper parlance these days, Harrison.)
He also told the graduating women that they may find their deepest fulfillment not in the board room — but at home, as a wife and mother.
The backlash was intense. There were furious columns and very angry tweets. It was discussed and panned by ladies on morning television. The NFL distanced itself from the speech, issuing a statement that “his views are not those of the NFL as an organization.”
And, most righteously, people thought he should be fired. A Change.org petition to “Demand the Kansas City Chiefs to Dismiss Harrison Butker for Discriminatory Remarks” had racked up more than 140,000 signatures by 5 p.m. Thursday (though it’s hard to tell how many are just 49ers fans).
If I were graduating right now, I would say, please lord, give me the wit and wisdom of Jerry Seinfeld over Butker’s boring meditation on the traditional family. This Catholic has heard enough sermons. I want to be entertained and inspired. I want to laugh.
But the cancelers have lost their minds.
Never mind the NFL could support its own police blotter every season. Players charged with domestic assault or drunk driving aren’t uncommon. Dolphins star Tyreek Hill, who pleaded guilty to domestic violence in 2015 and was briefly suspended by the Chiefs in 2019 during a child abuse investigation, had two paternity suits slapped on him last year.
But we need to get rid of a man who teared up while speaking lovingly of his wife’s unconditional support?
Butker also previously said he hoped teammate Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift “get married and start a family.”
What. A. Monster!
“How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?” he said, addressing Benedectine’s female grads. “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.”
I took his words to mean: We minimize the role of motherhood in our society, when we should exalt them.
His own mother is a physicist. I don’t want to put him on the couch, but maybe he saw her most important contribution to the world as being his mom.
Butker wasn’t saying women can’t work. He was reminding them that family and children can usurp job satisfaction. And let’s be honest, a career doesn’t always love you back or send you Mother’s Day cards or guarantee you get into the good nursing home at the end of your life. (Quite honestly, I’d like to hear Supreme Court Justice and mother-of-seven Amy Coney Barrett’s take on all this.)
His speech is not for everyone — but it also wasn’t meant to be.
I’m a big believer in knowing and speaking to your audience. And his audience was not the University of Chicks with Hairy Armpits. It was a small, conservative Catholic college in the Midwest, where his praise of his wife was met with 18 seconds of enthusiastic applause.
Benedictine’s commencement was the right time and place for Butker to express his message of faith and support of the traditional family.
Don’t like it? Don’t marry a dude from Butker’s prayer group.
We can disagree with Butker. But if you’re interested in culling pro locker rooms of conservative Christians — and Muslims — it will be tough to find enough atheist stringers to fill the rosters. His views likely won’t even raise the eyebrows of the many pro athletes who readily admit their stay-at-home wives are foundational to their success.
This Butker episode is a reminder that our society is not a monolith. Not even close. And praise Jesus for that.