President Joe Biden has invited the Kansas City Chiefs to the White House on May 31 to celebrate their second consecutive Super Bowl triumph earlier this year.
The Chiefs prevailed in the NFL’s showpiece event once again back in February after snatching a dramatic win over the San Francisco 49ers in overtime.
Three months on from that game, Kansas City players have been invited to the White House with Biden keen to mark their historic victory.
It means the President is poised for an awkward encounter with Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who recently took aim at his stance on abortion.
Butker sparked major controversy with his recent commencement speech at Benedictine College, where he claimed Biden supports the ‘murder of innocent babies’ while also taking aim at women and the LGBTQ+ community.
‘He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I’m sure to many people it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice,’ Butker told graduates at the college in Kansas City.
‘He is not alone. From the man behind the COVID lockdowns, to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common — they are Catholic. This is an important reminder that being Catholic alone doesn’t cut it.’
Biden also invited the Chiefs to the White House when they won the Super Bowl last year, heaping praise on Andy Reid’s team for their charitable work off the field as well as their success on it.
The President was unable to celebrate their victory in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Butker has drawn heavy criticism over his commencement speech earlier this month, after also claiming women should prioritize being ‘homemakers’ over potential careers and taking aim at Pride Month.
The NFL star’s Chiefs teammate Travis Kelce has distanced himself from his comments, despite waxing lyrical about his personality behind closed doors.
‘I cherish him as a teammate,’ he said. ‘I think Pat (Mahomes) said it best where he is every bit of a great person and a great teammate.
‘He’s treated family 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 Saint Benedict’s commencement speech, those are his. I can’t say I agree with the majority of it or just about any of it outside of just him loving his family and his kids.
‘And I don’t think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views, of how to go about life, that’s just not who I am.
‘I grew up in a beautiful upbringing of different social classes, different religions, different races and ethnicities and that’s why I love Cleveland Heights.
‘It showed me a broad spectrum, a broad view of a lot of different walks of life. I appreciated every single one of these people for different reasons and I never once had to feel that I needed to judge them based off their beliefs.
‘My mother and my father both provided for my family and my mother and my father made home what it was. And they were unbelievable at being present every single day of my life.
‘I think that was a beautiful upbringing for me. Now I don’t think everyone should do it the way my parents did, but I sure as hell thank my parents and love my parents for being able to provide and make home what it was.
‘I’m not the same person without the both of them being who they were in my life.’
