Whoopi Goldberg has defended Harrison Butker’s controversial commencement speech at Benedictine College, arguing that those are “his beliefs and he is welcome to them.”
Butker gave a 20-minute speech last Saturday at the private Catholic liberal arts college in Kansas, where he said women should be “homemakers” instead of working and said his wife Isabelle’s life “truly began when she began to live her vocation as a wife and as a mother.’
As of Thursday morning, a Change.org petition, ‘Demand Kansas City Chiefs Fire Harrison Butker for Discriminatory Comments,’ has more than 105,800 signatures, but Whoopi, 68, claimed the kicker is not He should lose his job simply because he is a staunch Catholic.
Whoopi Goldberg has defended Harrison Butker’s controversial commencement speech, arguing that those are “his beliefs and he is welcome to them.”
Butker gave a 20-minute speech last Saturday at the private Catholic liberal arts university in Kansas.
‘The NFL issued a statement indicating that he gave this speech in his personal capacity and not…the NFL does not share his views. So, you know, listen, I like it when people say what they say. He is a staunch Catholic. These are his beliefs and he is welcome to them,” the Sister Act star said.
‘I don’t have to believe them. I don’t have to accept them. The ladies in the audience don’t have to accept them. In the same way that we want respect when Colin Kaepernick kneels, we want to respect people whose ideas are different than ours, because the man who says he wants to be president, you know who,” he continued, referring to Donald Trump.
‘He tells the way to act is to take away people’s rights to say how they feel. We don’t want to be that, wWe don’t want to be those people.
‘So I’m fine with him saying everything he says and the women that were sitting there, yeah follow his advice, good for you theyHey, they will be happy. If they don’t, good for them. They will be happy in a different way “That’s my attitude,” Whoopi added.
Viewers tuning in from home were not impressed with his comments at all and took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share their thoughts.
“Why is Whoopi so submissive to this guy’s rhetoric?” one person posted, while another said, “Comparing this clown to what Colin Kaepernick did is an insult to Colin.” Whoopi is wrong.’
A third person claimed: ‘Whoopi is stuck on the man being fired. ‘I don’t hear anyone else on the panel saying that he should be fired, but rather disagreeing with what he said.’
Her co-host Sara Haines was quick to speak, telling Whoopi: ‘I agree with you and I. I don’t agree with you,” as Whoopi bluntly responded, “Okay.”
Sara Haines (R) urged Butker to “find the best parts of faith and not fall into extremist beliefs.”
The mother of three said: ‘I don’t want people to be shut down or fired for things they are willing to say. I’ll break with the Colin Kaepernick comparison for this reason: Colin Kaepernick was standing up for the rights of many and saying in a moment of social justice, “This is a reminder that we’re not there yet.”
“What this man is doing is not just a devout Catholic, he is someone who practices something called the Traditional Latin Mass, which is divergent from most Catholics.”
Sara continued: ‘It is compared to being a cult and extremist, like some religions in the Middle East and Asia.
“So this is a very extreme religion and what bothers me about that – as a Christian – is that when people abuse Christianity, they often not only cherry-pick from the Bible, but they misinterpret and lie by omission, removing parts that they have explained something a little better.
‘So what I can tell you, as a Christian, is that if you are using this to oppress people or suppress them, you are not walking with Jesus. If you are using religion, if you are more obsessed with religious rituals and practices than with the word of Jesus, you are not walking with Jesus.
‘And if you are using it to judge others and as a weapon to beat people, you are not walking with Jesus either. So I would really encourage you to find the best parts of the faith and not fall into extremist beliefs,” she added as the live studio audience applauded her.