Let’s not do to Harrison Butker what Trump did to Colin Kaepernick.
As you’ve no doubt already heard, last Saturday a football player (Kansas City Chief kicker Harrison Butker) gave the commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Much has been said and written about this speech, and there’s a petition asking the Chiefs to “dismiss Harrison Butker immediately for his inappropriate conduct”. Last I heard, more than 200K people had signed.
I try to know what I’m talking about before I write, so I watched the full speech on YouTube. (You can also read a transcript.) It’s a very traditional Catholic talk, including a lengthy endorsement of the Latin mass, so if you feel wounded by a Catholic upbringing (as many people I know do), you shouldn’t torture yourself with it.
That said, I would not sign the petition, because taking away someone’s livelihood is a big deal and should be reserved for more serious offenses.
Here’s what I think should happen: People who disagree with Butker and find themselves at a game where he takes the field should feel free to boo loudly. If you have access to any public platform, from your own TV show to a window-facing whiteboard, it would also be appropriate to make fun of him mercilessly. (Here’s an example to get you started.) I don’t know if he endorses any products, but if he does you can boycott them. All those actions just exercise the same freedoms he claims for himself.
So far, the Chiefs have said nothing and the NFL has distanced itself from his message without threatening any sanctions. That, again, is their right.
Of course, this response is nothing like what happened to Colin Kaepernick, whose NFL career ended prematurely after he knelt during the national anthem to protest racism. (Kaepernick’s unofficial shunning by teams who needed quarterbacks accorded with then-President Trump’s demand to “get that son of a bitch off the field.“) That gross injustice should not be forgotten — and in fact this is a good time to remember it — but dealing out a similar injustice to Butker will not right that wrong.
Anyway, here’s why I think Butker should not be punished beyond verbal humiliation: Benedictine College is a Catholic college that in recent years has moved to embrace traditional Catholic teachings and values. Students presumably choose to go there at least partially for that reason (though not all the graduates approved of Butker’s speech, and neither did the Benedictine Sisters associated with the College who said: “We reject a narrow definition of what it means to be Catholic”). Butker told the graduates, in essence, that they should feel good about what their school stands for. Places like Benedictine, he said, “are showing the world how an ordered, Christ-centered existence is the recipe for success.”
I have a lot of tolerance for religious groups making their case positively, as in “This is what we’re doing and it works for us. You should try it.” For the most part, that’s what the Benedictine College leadership seemed to be looking for and what Butker provided. At the end, he got a standing ovation.
Of course, Butker’s speech also included a lot annoyed me, beginning with his fairly snide remarks about “bad policies and poor leadership” during “the Covid fiasco”, which he seemed (without naming names) to attribute to Anthony Fauci but not Donald Trump (whose negligence is implicated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans). He talked about the importance of Catholics “staying in their lane”, but did not seem to do so when he criticized unnamed bishops. He denounced the “tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion”, and referred to “the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it”, i.e. gay pride.
He also spoke for his wife, telling “the ladies” what she “would” say about her choice to embrace her vocation as a homemaker rather than pursue her dream of having a career. For all I know he may be totally right about her lack of regret, but couldn’t he have asked her directly and then quoted her exact words, rather than ask himself and imagine her response? I was left to wonder (perhaps unfairly) how many opinions Mrs. Butker is allowed to have.
Mainly, though, he did what defenders of tradition so often do: justify a system in which he himself is privileged. Billionaires extol the virtues of low taxes, white Supreme Court justices tell us why laws protecting non-Whites are no longer needed, and Butker explains that
As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in.
Yes, we men are being totally selfless when we demand to set the tone of the culture. We only do it so that society will be spared the chaos that would inevitably ensue if our God-given authority were ever questioned.
You’re welcome, ladies.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
You’re missing a word in this sentence: “Of course, Butker’s speech also included a lot annoyed me…” That said, I agreed with your point.
Thank you for putting my sentiments about Mr. Butker’s remarkably silly speech into excellently crafted words. I disagree with most of what he said, and approve wholeheartedly of any jokes, uproarious laughter, counterpoint views, disdain, and so on, but I would never advocate that he lose his job over it. Neither I nor anyone I know looks to football players for moral guidance.
Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas should lose their jobs. Greg Abbott should lose his job. Harrison Butker should be laughed at and criticized, but not fired.
I agree with you about the speech. Thanks for your insightful messages.
There is one difference between Butker and Kaepernick, in that Kaepernick did what he did on the field and in uniform.
Mr. Kaepernick was being compelled to personify unqualified support for a flag that has too often represented hatred and injustice toward minorities. He chose to express a dissenting opinion rather than silently confirm a dishonest narrative.
Mr. Butker volunteered to run his mouth about a religion he knows surprisingly little about.
Old Catholic here: The views Harrison expressed are limited to the cult version. I know a great many priests and other religious. None of them agree with him about any of it.
Don’t worry, Butker won’t lose his job. NFL fans are conservatives for the most part, and won’t have a problem with his speech, assuming they’re even aware of it. Kaepernick in contrast went against popular opinion (popular among NFL fans) and was too toxic for the NFL to allow back on the field.
Butker’s speech was crafted to upset liberals. It’s even more outrageous that his mother is an accomplished surgeon, making his remarks the typical “do as I say, not as I do.” Don’t give this idiot any more publicity than he has already. I never heard of him before the reaction to this speech and will be delighted if I never hear about him again.
Butker is man-child who never grew up, and now gilds his toxic masculinity with a personal version of Catholicism the order of nuns at the school publicly disagree with and Pope Francis would find, at best, dated. It’s the Catholicism of Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, and other far right members of the SCOTUS. Of Opus Dei. And that’s what really should be of concern, because the extremist religion Butker is championing holds a majority on the highest court in the United States.
Butker plays a game for a living, which, in our society that values athletes far, far greater than its teachers and social workers, provides him the ability to pay for his wife staying home with the kids. If only every family could afford such an option for whichever parent wishes to do so.
Moreover, he married a girl he met in middle school. While this makes for nice People Magazine copy, it’s another indication of his childlike understanding of the world, one in which he’s never had to actually be an adult.
Kicking a football contributes nothing to the betterment of society. There’s absolutely no reason why his opinion on anything except, perhaps, preferred ball placement for an extra point, should be considered over literally any random person plucked from any random street.
This is especially true because, in addition to the nonsense of the right-wing Shibboleth about Covid and Joe Biden, he said two things that stand out. First, he said, “As a group, you witnessed firsthand how bad leaders who don’t stay in their lane can have a negative impact on society.” He isn’t speaking about Catholics; he’s speaking about people like Dr. Fauci, a person he’s in absolutely no position to evaluate, and in doing so, he’s the person who’s failing to “stay in his lane”, which is pretty damn narrow to begin with.
Second, he said, “For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.” Just who is it that’s been telling the women present who are there to receive their certifications of personal academic achievement before Butker sends them to the kitchen to get his dinner on the table all these “most diabolical” lies? Clearly, it’s some sort of conspiracy from the radical left who want to lead them astray from their true, highest calling to pump out babies and fawn over self-styled ‘alpha’ males.
Toxic masculinity proudly on display. Conspiracy nut spouting counter-factual, alt-reality right-wing talking points. Arrested development, emotionally stunted athlete from privilege and maintained in privilege. All this wrapped in a claim of religion the vast majority of its own leaders would reject. Welcome to America today.
Sorry, I’m not up to date on the right-wing narrative about Dr. Fauci. What lane is an infectious disease expert supposed to be in?
Thanks for this well-considered discussion of Butker’s speech – and what, if anything, should result.
One of the things I find – as one raised very Catholic (but not at all damaged by it), who abandoned Catholicism for Agnosticism in college, and then explored a number of disparate spiritual traditions in mid-life (including the Unity Church, the Lutherans, Zen Buddhism, and Unitarian Universalism) – is how “big-tent” the Catholic Church is compared to any other North American religious or spiritual tradition of which I’m aware. Both in terms of theology and political ideology, one can find everything from extreme conservatives to extreme liberals, and everything in between. Also, individuals who are conservative on theology but liberal on politics, and vice versa. Parish congregations that are heavy on conservatives, ones heavy with liberals, and ones where it doesn’t seem to matter to most parishioners where their fellows lie on those spectra.
During my stint as a Unitarian Universalist, I was seeing a Roman Catholic Benedictine nun as Spiritual Director (it’s a long story…!), and I can tell you that her Benedictine monastic community was, in the socio-political sense, liberal in the extreme, but, with the exception of unfailing reverence for the Rule of St. Benedict, quite theologically diverse. However, I am also aware that some very politically conservative Catholics who are just as devoted to the writings of St. Benedict have in recent times adopted his name for a movement that champions Catholic theological conservatism coupled with social conservatism and self-imposed isolation (see “The Benedict Option” by Rod Dreher).
So I am not surprised that there is a Benedictine College in Kansas where many who are “livin’ that dream” have congregated, nor am I surprised that there are Benedictine Sisters RIGHT THERE who are not so into it. But it sounds like the “Benedict Option” folks found their ideal celebrity Commencement speaker, and he delivered. I don’t agree with much of what he said, but, so long as he’s only advocating for it – and “preaching to the choir”, at that – and not trying to coerce the unconvinced, I say Let It Be…
Sometimes, I think people who want someone to be fired from his (unrelated) job just for saying out loud unpopular things in which he believes, haven’t thought through just how much THEY would dislike living in such a society were they the ones holding tiny-minority views…
“so long as he’s only advocating for it – and “preaching to the choir”, at that – and not trying to coerce the unconvinced, I say Let It Be…”
Amen.
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