Television personality and celebrity personal trainer Jillian Michaels has challenged the notion Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker should lose his job and be replaced by a woman for the simple “crime” of holding steadfast Christian beliefs.
The Kansas City Star recently published an opinion piece by contributor Peter Hamm suggesting the Chiefs drop their three-time Super Bowl-winning kicker and replace Butker with a female soccer player after his pro-Catholic, pro-traditional family views, sparked wide public debate – for and against.
Michaels believes Hamm’s call for “poetic justice” via the replacement of Butker with a female kicker is beyond reason.
“There was a study published in Sports Med that actually assessed the possibility for such things to happen, and, in fact, football kicker was one of the sports they looked at,” Michaels explained on Fox News this week.
“And men had a 16%-22% advantage over women in kicking a football.”
Blaze News reports it could not could not find the exact study that Michaels cited, adding the qualifier “there is a plethora of scientific evidence showing that men are more athletic kickers than women. No woman, after all, has ever made an NFL roster as a placekicker, nor do woman find football success at the collegiate level. Even the best female soccer players in the U.S. can lose to teenage boys.”
Michaels pointed out the free-speech double standard that exists in American culture — and asked why First Amendment rights were not applied to all in the public domain.
“As a person who probably couldn’t be more different than said kicker — I’m a female businesswoman, I’m gay, I’m not religious — I really don’t understand what this man said that has everybody calling for his head,” she said.
File/Biggest loser trainer Jillian Michaels poses after getting an IZOD two seater IndyCar ride before the 95th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 28, 2011 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for MATTER)
“Somebody tell me what I’m missing when there are literally children on a college campus down the street calling for the death of all Jews, but we’re protecting their First Amendment rights?” she pointed out.
“But this guy lives a little different than you, has different opinions than you, and we want his life ruined? What the heck?”