Opinion | Why Travis Kelce's defense of Harrison Butker makes a depressing amount of sense

Over a week after Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gave a draconian commencement speech at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, several of his fellow teammates and his head coach have broken their silence. And their responses are both revealing and incredibly disappointing.

Tight end Travis Kelce — current boyfriend of Taylor Swift, a notably ambitious and childless billionaire who has apparently bought into Butker's “diabolical lies” about pursuing a career — said he doesn’t believe he should judge his teammate “by his views.”

“I cherish him as a teammate,” Kelce said on the Friday episode of his “New Heights” podcast. “He is every bit of a great person and a great teammate." Kelce went on to claim Butker “treats everyone” he meets with “nothing but respect and kindness.”

Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes similarly told reporters that, despite Butker claiming LGBTQ+ people are committing "a deadly sin” and arguing women should not make their own decisions about their own bodies, his teammate is a “good person” who just “wants to make a good impact on society.”

“When you’re in the locker room, there’s a lot of people from different areas of life and they have a lot of different views on everything,” he continued. “We’re not always going to agree … but I understand the person that he is and he’s trying to do whatever he can to lead people in the right direction.”

Head coach Andy Reid mirrored Mahomes’ sentiments, adding that “everyone has got their own opinion” and “that’s what’s so great about this country.”

The underlying message is clear: Butker's speech was just a harmless sharing of ideas, a moment of self-expression that reaffirms the enlightened purpose of the First Amendment.

Yes, a diverse society filled with various beliefs and viewpoints is one we should all uphold and defend. And yes, as human beings we are all made better by exposing ourselves to different ways of thinking, religious teachings and political ideologies.

No one is saying the Constitution doesn’t apply to Harrison Butker. But that doesn’t mean his beliefs require or deserve defending. Indeed, there are many beliefs that do not make this country great but do have the potential to inflict serious harm.

But I wonder if Kelce or Mahomes or Reid actually read Butker’s speech — all of it. Because this address was not calling for free expression or a polite and productive exchange of diverse perspectives. This was a call to action.

Butker called on those in the audience to “stop pretending” that IVF and surrogacy “are normal.” He claimed birth control is not “natural.” He attacked the “bad policies and poor leadership” of Democrats, including President Joe Biden, for protecting access to abortion care. He urged his audience to reject Biden’s “church of nice” Catholicism, especially when faced with “the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

And we already know exactly what happens when these kinds of ideas turn into policy. In a post-Roe world, we’re living in a time in which medication abortion pills that have been found safer than Tylenol, penicillin and Viagra are now considered controlled dangerous substances; where our health is compromised by anti-abortion laws; where cruel so-called “personhood bills” are targeting IVF.

Butker also directly called out LGBTQ Americans ahead of Pride Month, slyly calling queer pride a “deadly sin.” That sort of rhetoric is exactly what fueled the more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in 2023 alone, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. House Republicans are currently trying to block new funding for LGBTQ nonprofits. Valentina Gomez, a GOP candidate for Missouri secretary of state, filmed a campaign ad exhorting Americans to not be "weak and gay."

By his own admission, Butker wanted the young graduates before him to go out into the world and champion leaders and policies who will pass bills and push for cultural shifts that align with and further his extreme viewpoints.

"I am hopeful that these words will be seen as those from a man, not much older than you, who feels it is imperative that this class, this generation, and this time in our society must stop pretending that the things we see around us are normal," he declared. "Make no mistake: You are entering into mission territory in a post-God world, but you were made for this."

Maybe Kelce, Mahomes and Reid truly believe Butker’s views are harmless. But that says more about their own privilege than anything else. It’s easy to compartmentalize and wax poetic about diversity of thought when your rights and freedoms aren’t on the proverbial chopping block.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com