Super Bowl-winning New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees swears he doesn’t support hate groups… but continues to work with Focus On The Family.
Star New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is angrily dismissing outrage from fans, including many supporters of the LGBTQ community, over his involvement with an infamous anti-LGBT organization, Focus on the Family. The 42-year old group, one of the best-funded anti-gay organizations in the world, promotes and advocates for the harmful and destructive pseudo-science of “conversion therapy.” LGBTQ people who have experienced it have likened it to torture.
Brees says all he did was record a short video for kids for “Bring Your Bible to School Day,” a nationwide effort to use kids to indoctrinate and convert their classmates into Christianity, which is disturbing enough.
But to make matters worse, “Bring Your Bible to School Day” is a program of Focus On The Family, which also actively opposes civil rights for LGBTQ people, including marriage and adoption.
In a videotaped statement Brees defends making the video, and blasts those criticizing him for it.
And in an astonishing act of ignorance, Brees concludes his videotaped statement by saying: “I do not support any groups that discriminate or that have their own agendas that are trying to promote inequality. So, hopefully that will set the record straight.”
Hopefully this sets the record straight with who I am and what I stand for. Love, Respect, and Accept ALL. I encourage you not to believe the negativity you read that says differently. It’s simply not true. Have a great day. pic.twitter.com/4RdTahE7EZ
— Drew Brees (@drewbrees) September 5, 2019
It might be written off as a wrong move by a football player who didn’t bother to consider what he was doing, but as Big Easy Magazine, which first reported on Brees’ “Bring Your Bible to School Day” video, notes, he has been involved with Focus On The Family for nearly a decade.
On Thursday Brees continued to defend his actions, telling reporters, “I was not aware of any of the things [Focus On The Family] said about them lobbying for anti-gay, any type of messaging for inequality of any type of hate-type related stuff. I was not aware of that at all.”
Drew Brees addresses his “National Bring Your Bible To School Day” video that appeared on Focus on The Family platforms.
— Amie Just (@Amie_Just) September 5, 2019
He said he was not aware of the group’s anti-LGBT views. He says hate goes against everything being a Christian is all about. pic.twitter.com/Jjhexqljo0
Brees apparently doesn’t understand he cannot separate his support for tiny portion of a group’s actions from that group’s principles.
And he has yet to denounce Focus On The Family or conversion therapy, nor has he promised to sever his partnership with the anti-LGBTQ group.
Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via Twitter/Screencap
