I’m not smart enough to take a stand on abortion — I’ve only just learned how to use a toaster.
But I am well aware that it will be a difficult call, with strong and valid arguments on both sides — until the issue is hijacked by extremists who know that television crews will be dispatched if civilized debate and dissent escalates into a hateful, possibly violent, confrontation.
While we would like to believe that everyone can act lawfully on the basis of their beliefs, the very element of “lawfulness” creates fanaticism that leads to factionalization and division.
Recently, Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, a devout Catholic, gave a commencement speech at Benedictine University, a Catholic school in Kansas. As several readers pointed out, he literally preached to his sympathizers.
He gave a civil defense and testimony of his life as a husband and father and as a Catholic, speaking without swearing, a cheesy modern way of emphasizing sincerity. He is clearly against abortion.
He never uttered a subversive word, he never made any radical statements unless his declaration of faith was a call to wage holy civil war, he never called for religious rebellion, he spoke as he was naturally invited and expected to speak.
Did I agree with him? Not entirely. I’m pro-life, but I’m also pro-life. And while it may seem radical for Roger Goodell’s NFL, I do agree with Butker’s emphasis on family.
In other words, Benedict College did not commit fraud: As a Catholic, he was invited to speak to a largely Catholic audience at a Catholic school graduation, and, to the surprise of only the indifferent, he spoke out against abortion while praising his wife as a mother and a housewife.
This was not a proselytizing exercise, but an eyewitness testimony.
I’ve been there. I’m Jewish, an openly Presbyterian graduate of a college. I attended monthly religious meetings as required by my college curriculum, some of which were quite interesting. I also carried a fake ID to get into the Colonial Bar and Grill, but never saw the grill.
I went in with my eyes wide open and graduated as a Jew with a Presbyterian degree. No hassle, no fuss, a solid liberal arts education was my lasting reward. No disadvantage, no harm.
But Goodell’s NFL made it clear that Butker’s comments did not meet the high social and political standards expected of the league and its players, implicitly declaring that Butker was out to disparage the reputation and legacy of a league that operates at a much higher level.
The NFL’s chief diversity and inclusion officer said Butker’s “views do not represent those of the NFL organization, and the NFL remains committed to inclusion.”
Really, what on earth did Butker say to justify this kind of reaction other than “That’s none of our business. What the players believe is up to them”?
And because the self-evident facts are so obvious, for the NFL to “distance itself” from Butker’s family-first comments, which it has accused of being “bigoted” and “misogynistic,” immediately generates raw laughs.
While the NFL is unlikely to sit idly by and condone Butker’s commitment last offseason, it has tolerated the criminal behavior of countless players over the years, with more to come.
Domestic violence, where a man severely beats a woman, is nearly endemic among NFL players, including those who have fathered an unknown number of children with multiple women.
Does a “commitment to inclusion” mean ignoring the indefensible and inexcusable while Butker is now an NFL-certified pariah?
The NFL can’t forgive Butker, but why didn’t they “distance themselves” from Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who settled with 23 women who accused him of sexual misconduct? Watson has since signed a $230 million contract. The NFL continues to sell his jerseys.
Why is the NFL unable to tolerate Butker, yet willing to tolerate Ray Lewis, an unapologetic headhunter who is frequently fined, performs bloody dances on the field before games and paid bribes to the families of two people killed in a case where he fled on obstruction of justice charges?
That’s the NFL, under Coach Goodell, America’s highest-paid, manipulative trickster, who was spotted embracing Lewis on the field before the Ravens-Giants Super Bowl, and Lewis was subsequently tapped to sell NFL merchandise in TV ads.
Is the NFL trying to suggest Butker is a bigot because he expresses his Catholic faith, when in fact the NFL has not publicly distanced itself from the most insane anti-Semitic, anti-police and anti-American rhetoric of its players as a matter of free speech rights?
It was Goodell, the ruthlessly selective and blatant panderer, who pledged $100 million in NFL funding to the Contract With Black America project led by rapper Ice Cube, who posts anti-Semitic photos online, and whose NFL blindly donated money and public support to a sweet-sounding neo-Marxist organization called Black Lives Matter that uses its supposedly righteous cause to line the pockets of its leaders and allow them to live in luxury homes on George Floyd’s blood money.
While Butker’s pro-family speech last week was denounced by supporters of Goodell’s “End Racism” end-zone PR scam, the Super Bowl halftime show has become the domain of vulgar, sexually explicit, crotch-grabbing, misogynistic, N-word-using, gun-worshipping rappers with criminal records.
Apparently, the NFL’s diversity and inclusion department condones it, which makes you wonder if P. Diddy is disqualified or overqualified.
In 2016, after five Dallas police officers were shot and killed by a sniper, Goodell’s NFL ruled that the Cowboys could not even wear stickers on their helmets honoring those killed in the line of duty.
Saints running back Alvin Kamara and company brutally beat a black man who had the audacity to try to ride in the same elevator as Kamara, yet Kamara was reinstated after a short suspension. Is this evidence of the NFL’s “unwavering commitment to inclusion”?
Butker received a formal, public reprimand from the NFL for emphasizing his Catholic faith in front of a Catholic crowd.
And then there are the suave, dignified media knee-jerkers calling for Butker to be fired or at least silenced.
In a recent podcast, Michelle Beadle and ESPN Radio’s childish Peter Rosenberg called on Butker to “fuck off,” proving him to be an enemy of modern civilization.
Alonso is too common
The Mets are one of those teams lacking in fundamentals, so it wasn’t a surprise Sunday when Pete Alonso had to slide wide to second base to hit a double that hit the wall.
Of course, he would have stood up had he not been jogging toward first base to see the home run, and maybe even advanced to third on a bad, rushed throw.
SNY’s Keith Hernandez: “Pete thought he won” As if that’s a valid excuse, no matter how many times it’s been seen and said.
The phrase “HT HR” or “he thought it was a home run” is so common now that it should be included in the box score.
The world is abuzz, continued: Ray Lewis has been selected for the honor of calling out “Riders up!” before Saturday’s Preakness race. I can’t think of a better candidate.
Reader Mike Soper suggested Lewis was wearing a dark blazer because his “blood-stained white blazer is still at the dry cleaners”.
