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Travis and Jason Kelce reacted to Kansas City Chiefs' kicker Harrison Butker's speech at Benedictine College earlier this month.
The speech was met with widespread backlash due to his dismissal of Pride month, discussion of women as "homemakers," and his proclamation that abortion is the "murder of innocent babies." At one point, he spoke to the "ladies" and said that he "would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world."
At one point, Harrison even quoted Taylor Swift's song "Bejeweled" when speaking about "the relationship between a priest and his people," stating, "Tragically, so many priests revolve much of their happiness from the adulation they receive from their parishioners, and in searching for this, they let their guard down and become overly familiar. This undue familiarity will prove to be problematic every time, because as my teammate's girlfriend says, familiarity breeds contempt."
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The NFL subsequently issued a statement saying, "Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity. His views are not those of the NFL as an organization." Quarterback Patrick Mahomes further said, "We’re not always going to agree, and there are certain things he said that I don’t necessarily agree with. But I know the person he is, and he’s doing what he can to lead people in the right direction."
In a new episode of their New Heights podcast, Travis directly addressed his teammate's behavior. He began, "I've known him for seven or eight-plus years, and I cherish him as a teammate. I think Pat said it best: He is every bit of a great person and a great teammate. He's treated friends and family that I've introduced to him with nothing but respect and kindness, and that's how he treats everyone."
"When it comes down to his views, and what he said at [Benedictine's] commencement speech, those are his," he continued. "I can't say I agree with the majority of it, or just about any of it, outside of him loving his family and his kids. I don't think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views, of how to go about life. It's just not who I am."
Speaking of his own background, Travis said, "I grew up in a beautiful upbringing of different social classes, different religions, different races and ethnicities in Cleveland Heights. That's why I love Cleveland Heights for what it was: It showed me a broad view of a lot of different walks of life. I appreciated every single one of those people for different reasons, and I never once had to feel like I needed to judge them based off of their beliefs."
He elaborated, "My mother and my father both provided for our family. And both my mother and my father made home what it was. They were homemakers and they were providers and they were unbelievable at being present every single day in my life. I think that was a beautiful upbringing for me. I don't think everyone should do it the way that my parents did, but I certainly love my parents for being able to provide and making sure that home was what it was."
Jason followed on from Travis's thoughts, saying, "You learn more about people with who they are on a daily basis. There's always going to be opinions that everybody shares that you're gonna disagree with. Make no mistake about it: A lot of the things he said in his commencement speech are not things that I align myself with. But, he's giving a commencement speech at a Catholic university. Shocker: It ended up being a religious and Catholic speech."
The father of three then said that others had asked him how he would have felt if it was his daughters' commencement speech, to which he added, "If my daughters listened to anybody tell them what to do, that they should be homemakers, then I've failed as a dad. I don't care who's talking to them." He further said that he prefers to dismiss people as "fucking idiot" and "you move on," later adding "there's a much bigger issue with another gender, in terms of raising kids."
"I know that certain of these groups have been persecuted against for a long period in this country, women in particular. My wife, she was a little bit frustrated with some of the comments. Initially I said, 'Listen, you're going to need to go back in the kitchen to make me a sandwich. It's a game right now,'" he joked.
You can listen to their full discussion here.
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