Some of you have more than likely heard about the awful commencement speech given by Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. 

If you haven’t, here’s a brief rundown of what happened and what was said; Butker gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College, a Catholic college in Atchison, Kansas, that was filled with misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic comments.

A majority of his speech was targeted toward the women in the crowd. He starts off with, “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.” 

He then goes on to say that some of those women may live successful careers but 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.”

First off, what diabolical lies are you referring to, Harrison? The fact that we want to make our own choices despite people like you telling us that our only goal in life is to be homemakers and child-bearers? 

His statements were pretty bold, considering that Butker’s mom is a physicist at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute. I hope she’s ashamed of the comments her son has made. 

Imagine you just spent thousands of dollars to get an education for a career that you have spent years working toward only to be told that you should stay in the kitchen and serve your husband. 

Statements like these are harmful and set feminism back 50-60 years. We have made so much progress from being so-called “servants” to pursuing jobs in the workforce that are usually male-dominated. Little by little, it seems like we are getting our rights stripped away, and it’s gotten worse since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

These statements are also used to promote violence towards women, justify men’s dominance and are often used as a way of seeing women as objects rather than human beings. 

Here’s something: I would venture to guess that some of the women in the crowd of 485 people don’t want children at all or aren’t interested in marriage, let alone in men. 

This leads me to my next point when, in his speech, he encouraged graduates to “have pride” and “not the deadly sin sort of pride that has a whole month dedicated to it.” 

As a queer person, I feel sorry for all the LGBTQ+ graduates that had to sit there and listen to him take a dig at our community that has spent decades upon decades fighting for rights only to be told that we should not have a month dedicated to our well-deserved pride. 

If that already doesn’t sound horrible, to make matters worse, he dragged Taylor Swift into it.

When referring to Taylor Swift, he quoted a lyric from her song “Bejeweled” from her album “Midnights.” Only he didn’t credit her by name; in his speech, he said, “As my teammate’s girlfriend says: ‘Familiarity breeds contempt.’” 

As a Swiftie, I believe that Taylor deserves so much more credit than being referred to as Butker’s “teammate’s girlfriend.” Not to mention, he also dragged Travis Kelce into his speech with that comment as well. 

His stab at Swift shows that Butker is insecure because Swift’s net worth is worth more than his will ever be. Butker’s net worth as an NFL player is estimated to be around $5 million, whereas Swift’s net worth is $1.1 billion, which she has accumulated from her music and her sold-out Eras tour, which has become the highest-grossing tour of all time. 

Butker also took Swift’s lyric out of context; while yes, the phrase itself means that people can become bored and stop respecting you, in “Bejeweled,” Swift uses the phrase to illustrate her belief that the better her partner knows her, the more he will want to leave her.

Butker, on the other hand, used it to criticize priests for “catering too much” to the feelings of parishioners. 

I may not be Catholic or Christian, but I would like to know what Butker meant by this. Is it because Pope Francis has tried to make Catholic churches more welcoming for those in the LGBTQ+ community? While that’s complicated within itself, Butker wasn’t clear on how priests are catering to parishioners. 

Butker also took a jab at a fellow Catholic, President Joe Biden, and claimed that Biden was “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America,” referring to the Biden administration’s move to protect LGBTQ+ students, including transgender students. 

The NFL has since come out and said that Butker’s views are personal and do not align with the organization itself. The speech has also been condemned by the nuns at Benedictine College in a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday.

Not to mention that some of the students at Benedictine were uncomfortable with Butker’s speech and an alumni who graduated from the college in 2019 called the remarks “disheartening.” 

Christian users on X (formerly Twitter) also used the platform to speak out against Butker’s speech with one user saying that Butker should not have given his speech.

Despite the backlash, Butker has gained support from several people, including support from Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt’s daughter, Gracie Hunt, and teammate Chris Jones. 

Butker also received a standing ovation at the ceremony, although some women booed and stayed seated during the ovation. Since his speech, sales for Butker’s jerseys have risen as well. 

Overall, Butker was out of line with his speech; no one asked for him to say any of this. No one asked for my commentary either, but it was provoked by the fact that misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic comments were made. 

As I said before, I may not be Catholic or Christian. I do believe in a different religion, but you don’t see me, a Pagan, publicly shaming those who believe that my religion is “worshiping the devil” even though they’re misinformed. 

No, I either don’t bring up my beliefs at all unless asked or I take the time to educate others that other beliefs exist because we should all “love thy neighbor,” which is something Butker should learn.