Every time someone waves a rainbow flag at a sporting event, a bunch of knuckleheads scream foul. They have a predictable refrain.
“Keep politics out of sports!” They cry. As though a rainbow flag is “politics.”
Yet these same anti-gay fans seems to have no problem when anti-gay Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker creates a — wait for it — Political Action Committee that opposes LGBTQ rights.
That, somehow, is just him exercising his 1st Amendment rights.
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Butker’s views on LGBTQ people were made clear in his Benedictine College commencement speech this spring, where he called June Pride celebrations the “deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it.” He also condemned what he called “degenerate cultural values in media” (code for pro-LGBTQ messages) and called the push for inclusion “tyranny.”
I imagine if you point out that Butker is bringing politics into sports… this crowd would accuse you of being “political.”
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To be clear, I have no issue with Butker or any other sports figure — or any public figure, for that matter — using their platform to be as political as he wants. It takes a lot of hard work to get to where Butker is. He can do what he wants with the platform he built.
Michael Jordan famously said he stayed out of politics because Republicans buy shoes too. That’s one way to go about it.
When Tom Brady simply had a red “Make America Great Again” hat in his New England Patriots locker in 2015 — and this was before the media really turned on Trump, still thinking his candidacy was a joke — some people’s heads exploded. Wading into politics, even when it’s on behalf of a friend, can have serious fanbase consequences for even the greatest quarterback of all time.
Now as the U.S. presidential race heats up, athletes are lending their voices to support both Trump and Kamala Harris. Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell were handing out yellow Trump-Vance “Terrible Towels” at the stadium ahead of the Jets-Steelers Sunday Night Football game last weekend.
That’s fine. Again, “1st Amendement!”
Rainbow flags at sporting events? Or… gulp… a rainbow on a jersey?
“You nasty gays leave your politics out of my enjoyment of the game!”
Butker’s journey to this place has been fascinating to watch. When he gave his sexist, anti-gay, anti-trans speech at Benedictine College in May, his world likely felt collapsing around him. What was supposed to be a speech — full of some truly mean-spirited opinion — heard by only a few hundred people was suddenly exposed to hundreds of millions.
Yet the anti-gay “keep politics out of sports” crowd rallied to his defense.
Frankly, I prefer politics mostly be kept out of sports — true politics. Wrapping sports around particular candidates or political parties or political causes has never been my cup of tea. For the 25 years Outsports has been in existence, Jim Buzinski and I have kept party politics on the sideline of our coverage.
That’s very different from thoughtful conversations about policies that affect LGBTQ people sports. We have long engaged in these important policy discussions and will continue to do so.
Either way, waving a rainbow flag at a sporting event isn’t and has never been about “politics.” It’s about demonstrating that all are welcome at the game, including a segment of society that for a long time felt, or was told outright, they didn’t belong.
What is politics? A Political Action Committee. Butker’s Upright PAC doesn’t shy away from it:
“We’re seeing our values under attack every day,” they say on their own website. “That’s why UPRIGHT PAC was founded. We are working to mobilize Christians across this country to make sure we protect these values at the ballot box.”
The values Butker and his PAC aim to advance seem to have been laid out in his Benedictine College speech, convincing women to stay in the kitchen and attacking anyone who isn’t straight.
Because this fits perfectly with the “keep politics out of sports” crowd, they welcome these politics in their sports.
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