Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is expected to join his team Friday on a visit to the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl championship despite the player’s strident criticism of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Biden is set to visit with the team and when asked if Butker would be joining them, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid told reporters, “Oh, I’m sure he will, yeah,” CNN reported.
All will be watching the event, though, for any uncomfortable moments between Butker and the president after the kicker had very harsh words for Biden’s destruction of the country during his May 11 commencement address given to the graduates at the private Catholic institution, Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas.
During his comments, Butker bashed Biden for “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America” — an apparent reference to Biden’s dedication to the radical transgender movement. He also slammed DEI initiatives and called gay Pride Month as a celebration of a “deadly sin.”
Watch: https://t.co/xYaqUWM7YL
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Butker also went on to urge the women in the audience to think seriously about having a family and not to forgo that just for a career and told the men to embrace their masculinity. He added that his own wife would agree that having a family was more important to her than having a career in business.
The kicker’s speech became a focus of vitriol from the far left and he was buffeted by accusations that he is “homophobic,” “transphobic,” and a “misogynist.”
Despite all this, though, Butker has refused to back down or apologize for his support of traditional Catholic ideals. Just last weekend, Butker said he has no regrets at all over his commencement address.
He said, “If it wasn’t clear that the timeless Catholic values are hated by many, it is now,” adding that he knows he has become a “more polarizing” figure for speaking openly about his faith.
“Our love for Jesus, and, thus, our desire to speak out, should never be outweighed by the longing of our fallen nature to be loved by the world. Glorifying God and not ourselves should always remain our motivation despite any pushback or even support,” he added.
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However, at least two key Chiefs stars have distanced themselves from Butker’s comments.
Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes did not directly criticize Butker and insisted he is a “good person,” but Mahomes did say he does not agree with everything Butker said during his commencement address.
Travis Kelce similarly distanced himself from Butker even as he said the kicker is a good person.
“There’s certain things that he said that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I understand the person that he is, and he is trying to do whatever he can to lead people in the right direction,” Kelce said.
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