Patrick Mahomes reacts to teammate Harrison Butker's controversial speech
Patrick Mahomes may not agree with views his teammate Harrison Butker shared in a controversial commencement speech, but he still thinks the NFL kicker is "a great person."
The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback weighed in on Butker's headline-making speech while speaking to reporters at the Chiefs' training complex in Kansas City on May 22.
“I know Harrison. I’ve known him for seven years and I judge him by the character that he shows every single day and that’s a good person,” Mahomes told reporters. “That’s someone who cares about the people around him, cares about his family and wants to make a good impact in society.”
Mahomes was careful to distance himself from the opinions his teammate shared during his speech, which took place May 11 at Benedictine College, a small Catholic college in Kansas.
Butker, who is Catholic himself, used his time at the podium to speak out against birth control, IVF and LGBTQ Pride month while also encouraging young women in the audience to be homemakers, among other topics.
“When you’re in the locker room, there’s a lot of people from a lot of different areas of life,” Mahomes said. “They have a lot of different views on everything, and we're not always going to agree. And there’s certain things that he said I don’t necessarily agree with but I understand the person that he is and he’s trying to do whatever he can to lead people in the right direction.
“And that might not be the same values as I have,” he added. “But at the same time, I’m going to judge him by the character that he shows every single day and that’s a great person. And we'll continue to move along and try to help build each other up to make ourselves better every single day.”
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid also addressed Butker's speech at a press conference.
“I talk to Harrison all the time. I didn't talk to him about this. I didn't think we needed to. We're a microcosm of life, everybody's from different areas, different religions, different races. We all get along. We all respect each other’s opinions and not necessarily do we go by those but we respect everybody to have a voice. That’s the great thing about America," Reid told reporters.
Butker's speech recently drew criticism from a group of nuns associated with Benedictine College.
The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, who describe their group as a founding institution and sponsor of the college, issued a statement that read in part, “Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division. One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman.”
The NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Jonathan Beane, told TODAY.com in a statement on May 15 that Butker's polarizing views were "not those of the NFL as an organization.”
“The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” the statement added.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
