Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker can certainly be considered a throwback from another era with his sexist and homophobic rhetoric. Everyone is free to point the finger at him and denounce his comments. Just like he should still be free to make a living in the NFL.
• Read also: A woman’s place is at home, says NFL football player Harrison Butker
Butker went viral like no kicker before him, because from his pedestal he decided that a woman’s place is at home.
His Sermon on the Mount, at an ultra-Catholic university in Kansas, felt like he took a trip back in time in Doc Brown’s DeLorean in Back to the future to transform into a priest in the heart of the deep countryside one or two centuries ago.
If he had praised the role of mother without mentioning that women’s place is in the home, he would have deserved all the accolades imaginable.
He could have said that the role of woman in the home is laudable like any profession, without presuming to decree what women should do with their lives or claiming that they have been conditioned by the devil to work.
Like in a fiction
He also spoke about the LGBT+ community, associating it with “mortal sins” and abortion which according to him is equivalent to the “murder of innocent babies”.
A little more and he demanded the immediate establishment of the Republic of Gilead, from the series The Scarlet Maid.
In this fiction, the United States sinks into a totalitarian regime where women are relegated to the role of reproduction, without having the right to learn or work. This would undoubtedly fill our dear kicker with happiness!
Some will say that Butker never said that women could not work, but rather that they should value their role as spouse and mother more. Maybe, but he still made extremely insensitive and disconnected comments. He should not exercise any moral authority over women’s life choices.
What consequences?
Photo credit: AFP
Now that this whole aspect is clear, what is the logical next step for him?
His caveman comments have clearly been disturbing since a petition on change.org asking the Chiefs to fire him immediately has collected more than 186,000 names at the time of writing.
This is exactly where there is a loss of control. We have every right to say that Butker barely escapes it.
We are completely free to think that his speech has no place, even in a tavern in the village of Saint-Trou-de-Jadis.
Anyone can read this player’s comments and feel deeply affected by his values.
What becomes almost as unhealthy as Butker’s speech, however, is to prohibit him from earning his crust and confine him to the abyss of oblivion for eternity.
It’s one thing to clearly, openly, and strongly disagree with Butler’s view of life. It’s one thing to take a public forum and oppose their way of thinking about things.
It is quite another thing to condemn him to roast in the flames of hell for life.
There’s even worse
The NFL, like other sports leagues, is full of athletes who have done much more offensive things.
To stay in the Chiefs’ backyard, they never flinched too much when their former star receiver Tyreek Hill pleaded guilty to domestic violence in 2015 and in 2019, he was the subject of an investigation for abuse of one of his children.
How many players have been caught repeatedly violating the anti-doping policy or committing other social crimes? How many put the lives of others in danger by going crazy on the road with their luxury cars, as was recently the case for another Chiefs player, wide receiver Rashee Rice? How many have been arrested while drunk?
The common denominator is that they all have the blessing to continue playing, even if it often borders on the ridiculous.
Butker clearly didn’t have his best 20 minutes. I consider, from a very personal point of view, his speech absolutely backward. The society of his dreams is not the one I want to live in.
That doesn’t stop me from finding it inconceivable that so many people want to take away his right to kick a ball.
There might be 50 million names on the petition, but any healthy society should guarantee everyone the right to express their ideas and to work. Even to the biggest aunties…
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2024-05-19 04:00:00
#sexist #homophobic #stop #playing #football
