Chris Kluwe: There’s a shift occuring in the NFL right now

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An NFL footballer has spoken out again, since sending an impassioned letter to a delegate who had asked for a fellow footballer in Baltimore to be silenced over his pro-equal marriage stance.

At the beginning of September, Chris Kluwe, of the Minnesota Vikings, penned a letter to Delegate Emmett C Burns Jr, who had written to the Baltimore Ravens’ owner, Steven Disciotti, asking him to stop Brendon Ayanbadejo from speaking out in favour of marriage equality.

The letter read: “I find it inconceivable that you are an elected official of Maryland’s state government. Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level”.

Mr Ayanbadejo, and his club, defended his position on the matter. The complaint from Delegate Burns arose because he had recorded a video for Marylanders for Marriage Equality in October 2011.

Talking about the NFL, and the number of players who have begun vocally speaking out in favour of equality, he said:

“It looks like there’s this shift occurring in the NFL right now,” said Mr Kluwe, “As younger and younger generations are coming through, they’ve been raised to realise that this isn’t bad thing. It’s about equality. It’s about being able to lead your life free of oppression,” the Huffington Post reported.

Discussing the letter to Delegate Burns, he said:

“If you’re turned off by the swearing and the scatological reference or a genital mashup, then you’re not looking at the content of the message,”

“The difference between my letter and Mr Burns’ letter is that, yeah, while my letter on the surface may seem shocking, what Mr Burns did with his words was absolutely a disgrace to the English language, because he’s trying to use the English language to oppress someone else.”

Mr Kluwe is now campaigning for Minnesotans for Equality, a group pushing to approve equal marriage in Minnesota in November’s ballot on the issue.

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