Seething leftists have started a petition to try to force the Kansas City Chiefs to release three-time Super Bowl champion kicker Harrison Butker from the team over comments he made last week about abortion, gender ideology and President Joe Biden.
The same kind of people you would assume are currently supporting the repressive ideas of Hamas in Gaza are fuming after Butker offered a moving commencement speech last Saturday at a Catholic university in Kansas.
The 28-year-old told graduates of Benedictine College in the city of Atchison that they should avoid becoming of the world and instead champion traditional values and stay true to their faith.
Days after Butker made statements that just a few years ago would have been far from controversial, a petition on Change.org is calling on him to pay dearly for using his free speech on his own time while addressing people who, like him, are champions of faith.
The petition, called “Demand the Kansas City Chiefs to Dismiss Harrison Butker for Discriminatory Remarks,” was launched on Monday, and it had received more than 111,000 signatures as of Thursday morning.
“The harmful remarks made by Harrison Butker, kicker of the Kansas City Chiefs, during his commencement address at Benedictine College were unacceptable,” the petition began.
It added, “His comments were sexist, homophobic, anti-trans, anti-abortion and racist. These dehumanizing remarks against LGBTQ+ individuals, attacks on abortion rights and racial discrimination perpetuate division and undermine human rights.”
The petition went on to call Butker’s popular opinions on lifestyles, the preservation of human life and sanity “unacceptable” and a threat to “social progress.”
Willard Harris, who launched the petition, went as far as to connect Butker to “hate crimes.”
“It’s important to note that these types of discriminatory attitudes contribute significantly towards societal issues such as hate crimes which have been on the rise in recent years,” the petition stated.
The bonkers petition concluded, “We call upon the Kansas City Chiefs management to dismiss Harrison Butker immediately for his inappropriate conduct.”
A browse through some of the comments on the petition showed many of those who signed it were women who were enraged that the issue of abortion is now a local one.
The end of Roe v. Wade means their babies cannot be as easily butchered as they could have just two years ago, as terminating a pregnancy is no longer a form of birth control in many states.
One of many commenters — whom you would assume does not watch football — wrote, “As a woman living in a post-Roe America, I’m exhausted from men telling women what to do with their lives. Enough.”
So, what did Butker say that was so “repressive” and dehumanizing?
The NFL star called out abortion what it is, which is murder. He also ripped hypocrites within the Catholic church — people such as Biden — for supporting radical gender ideology and the LGBT movement.
In a shot at the societal embrace of “pride,” Butker told Benedictine graduates they should be proud of their school.
He added, “Not the deadly sins sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it, but the true, God-centered pride that is cooperating with the holy ghost to glorify him.”
Butker also admonished Biden, a professed Catholic, for making the sign of the cross at a pro-abortion event in Florida last month.
“Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally,” the Cheifs kicker said.
“From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common — they are Catholic,” Butker also stated.
He concluded that the country is led by people and movements that promote “degenerate cultural values” that he said are based in “disorder.”
None of what the young husband and father of two said was remotely on the fringe. Millions of Americans share those same ideas about abortion, damaging gender ideologies and the sin of “pride.”
But the left has gone so far off the deep end that expressing normal, rational and faithful ideas is now considered so repugnant that even hearing such opinions is driving people who once claimed to practice tolerance insane with rage.
These people want Butker canceled and exiled for his perceived thought crimes against infanticide, lewdness and deviancy.
The petition and its support are a perfect snapshot of the moment we are living in. The modern left no longer wishes to live in a country with basic freedoms, such as the First Amendment.
They want Butker severely punished for daring to challenge their ideas, and if they got their way, they wouldn’t stop with him.
These people want a world where any and all opposition to them is rooted out and squashed.
It’s all the more reason for rational, well-meaning people to wake up each day and live lives of virtue and to show their public support for young men like Butker, who is willing to take the arrows.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
