Harrison Butker graduation speech

[G1911]

I will probably regret biting the bait

I do not believe in God, but I have read the Bible many times, read Augustine regularly etc., and generally look positively on the Christians and the Catholics. Wrong I think they are in matters of fact, but it is primarily Christian groups that I see actually trying to do good things in the community like feeding the poor. I would like a fellow to have a view that holds to reason and to be a good man, but I would rather have only the second than only the former.

I was considered left in the 2000's with the gay issue. I thought they should have equal rights and protections under the law (they now do), supported civil unions etc. I was not invested in the marriage issue, I had no objection beyond my general distaste for redefining terms to mean new things to suit the interest of a very politicized lobbying group. I am straight, have not married, and will never marry. I have no personal investment in it as an institution, beyond a generally positive historical view that it has produced social stability in the past. Now I am considered right on the LGBT stuff because I am cognizant that a man who says he is a woman is not a woman, and that there is a discernible actual reality distinctly different from what a person I identify as part of my tribe says. I am still not a turtle if I say I am.

I do not agree with the Catholics on many things, and I agree on some things (more on the values side, as I deny their rendition of how the world works). Marriage is both a state-sanctioned legal thing and a religious thing in most religions. The conservative Catholic response is really not very extreme. Yes, there are some small little groups of Christians who still think they are the spawn of satan, you can find extremes in ANY group of hundreds of millions of people. You will get some crazy extreme takes from homosexuals too (I heard far worse from social justice courses when I was attending a California university than anything a Catholic has told me). By and large, the opinion expressed is merely that the traditional ways are the right way to live, that homosexuality is sinful, and that God loves the sinner and hates the sin. It's really not that bad. I don't agree with it, I do not care what consenting adults do in privacy (I care a bit when a group insists on the sex parades and blocking traffic or inconveniencing me and having to sit through diversity spiels of political propaganda), but if THIS is the criticism facing a group, that group is doing amazingly well. I hear more intense disagreement than this kickers speech pretty much every day of my life without issue. I fundamentally object to the rising opinion that they should never have to hear criticism and that their world view is paramount to others rights of speech and that speech not consistent with LGBTQIA+-whatever-it-is-today propaganda needs to be censored from social platforms and public view as so many in the public are calling for and some have done, as I do for any group that wants to assign its feelings over others speech.

I note that people have a great courage of conviction when they believe the others won't do anything back to them for said courage. Christianity is freely and constantly attacked often over this rather mild stance on the gay issue, while there is no courage of conviction from gay rights activists to deal with Islam at all. If we cared about homosexuals, not political points, we would focus there. The Catholics are just an easier punching bag, an institution unpopular with those circles that takes criticism healthily and with a shrug and isn't out executing gays or people who criticize their faith. It seems to me fairly obvious that the actual religious threat to gays is not Christians who merely don't agree with them, like this kicker's rather innocuous speech that people are assigning value to for some reason.