New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a committed Christian, and, before last week, deeply admired and liked by people of all colors and no color, committed an almost unforgivable sin. He said this in response to a specific question about athletes kneeling during the national anthem:

I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell you what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played, and when I look at the flag of the United States. I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corp, both risking their lives to protect our country and to try to make our country and this world a better place. Every time I stand with my hand over my heart, looking at that flag, and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about, and in many cases, it brings me to tears thinking about all that has been sacrificed, not just [by] those in the military, but … those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and everyone, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go, but I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better and that we are all part of the solution.” (emphasis added)

“Progressives” became apoplectic and splenetic. Judging from their attacks, one would think Brees had publicly celebrated Derek Chauvin.

Under withering attacks, Brees offered two apologies because the mob hated his first one. Then his wife, Brittany Brees, issued an apology in which she said,

Somehow we as white America … can feel good about not being racist, feel good about loving one another as God loves us. We can feel good about educating our children about the horrors of slavery and history. We can read books to our children about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X., Hank Aaron, Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman.. and feel like we are doing our part to raise our children to love, be unbiased and with no prejudice. To teach them about all of the African Americans that have fought for and risked their lives against racial injustice. Somehow as white Americans we feel like that checks the box of doing the right thing. Not until this week did Drew and I realize THAT THIS IS THE PROBLEM. To say “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag” .. I now understand was also saying I don’t understand what the problem really is, I don’t understand what you’re fighting for, and I’m not willing to hear you because of our preconceived notions of what that flag means to us. That’s the problem we are not listening, white America is not hearing. We’re not actively LOOKING for racial prejudice.

If saying “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag” also says “I don’t understand what the problem really is,” then does kneeling during the national anthem mean both “America is systemically racist” and “I don’t understand why you value the flag and national anthem. I don’t understand what you see that’s good in America. I’m not willing to hear you because of our view of America as pervasively evil and whites as oppressors”?

Unlike Brittany Brees, I can’t speak for all of white America. I don’t know what all of white America feels. But I do know that for a lot of white Americans, teaching our children about the horrors of slavery and lynchings, about Jim Crow laws, and about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Hank Aaron, Jesse Owens, and the Tuskegee Airmen is not about “feeling good.” Raising our children to love others, to hate bigotry, and to stand up for mistreated friends is not about “feeling good” or “checking boxes.” It’s not about virtue-signaling or pride. It’s about serving Christ. It’s about loving our neighbors as ourselves. It’s about truth.

“Progressives” argue that people who explicitly condemn police brutality and all forms of bigotry and who have never said or done anything racist are the problem if they don’t endorse kneeling during the national anthem. Just curious, does that principle of collective guilt apply to all egregious sin? Are people who explicitly oppose the sexual exploitation of women and children in pornography, strip clubs, prostitution, and sex trafficking, and who have never viewed porn, visited a strip club, hired a prostitute, or trafficked women and children a problem? Should they kneel during the national anthem as a protest against the many Americans who watch porn, leer at women in strip clubs, hire prostitutes, and/or traffic in women and children? Are our flag and national anthem now symbols of the poisonous systemic abuse of women and children that colleges and universities promote through courses that celebrate porn? Are Americans who explicitly oppose the sexual exploitation of women and children, who are pro-actively teaching their children about its evil, and who have never been complicit in it via using porn, visiting strip clubs, hiring prostitutes, or sex-trafficking, the problem if they are not “actively” looking for the sexual exploitation of women and children?

Former NFL player Shannon Sharpe said this about Drew Brees’s response to an interviewer’s question about the knee-taking of athletes:

[Drew] issued an apology … but it’s meaningless because the guys know he spoke his heart the very first time around. I don’t know what Drew’s going to do, but he probably should just go ahead and retire now. He will never be the same. Take it from a guy that has been a leader in the locker room for a number of years. What he said, they will never look at him the same because he spoke his heart. It wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it. He was defiant. I will NEVER [yes, Sharpe shouted that defiantly] respect the man.

BTW, Brees did not speak defiantly as Sharpe falsely claimed—making Sharpe, therefore, a slanderer. Don’t believe me? Well, watch it yourself and see if you think Brees was “defiant”:

Sharpe expresses the “progressive” view of “tolerance,” and this is why “progressivism” will destroy both freedom and the country. Brees saying that he disagrees with knee-taking during the national anthem while at the same time saying the flag represents the sacrifices made during the Civil Rights era and acknowledging that right now we have a lot of work yet to do renders him—in Sharpe’s repugnant view—unsuitable for employment or respect.

Brees’s teammate Malcolm Jenkins castigated him too saying,

Drew Brees, if you don’t understand how hurtful, how insensitive your comments are, you are part of the problem. To think that because your grandfathers served in this country and you have a great respect for the flag that everybody else should have the same ideals and thoughts that you do is ridiculous. And it shows that you don’t know history. Because when our grandfathers fought for this country and served and they came back, they didn’t come back to a hero’s welcome. They came back and got attacked for wearing their uniforms. They came back to people, to racism, to complete violence.”

Brees never said anything like “everybody else should have the same ideals and thoughts” that he does. Moreover, Brees is justified in valuing the service of his grandfathers, and he is justified in his respect and love for America—the country to which emigrants the world over seek entry. He’s justified in loving America for her founding—though imperfectly realized—principles. He’s justified in celebrating the incredible integration of peoples of diverse races, ethnicities, and religions in America. He’s justified in appreciating how far we’ve come since slavery and Jim Crow laws.

It is possible for whites both to value the sacrifice and service of their fathers and grandfathers and to feel contempt for the injustice of black fathers and grandfathers being ill-treated following their service and sacrifice.

Vietnam war veterans—both black and white—were spit on by liberals when they returned home. Do we hold liberals who, not only didn’t engage in such behavior but also condemn it, accountable for that injustice? Do we blame such ugly behavior committed by some liberals fifty years ago on all of America? Does the American flag and national anthem symbolize their repugnant acts?

Jenkins continued,

And then here we are in 2020, with the whole country on fire, everybody witnessing a black man dying—being murdered—at the hands of the police, just in cold blood for everybody to see. The whole country’s on fire, and the first thing that you do is criticize one’s peaceful protest that was years ago when we were trying to signal a sign for help and signal for our allies and our white brothers and sisters, the people we consider to be friends, to get involved? It was ignored. And here we are now with the world on fire and you still continue to first criticize how we peacefully protest because it doesn’t fit in what you do and your beliefs without ever acknowledging that the fact that a man was murdered at the hands of police in front of us all and that it’s been continuing for centuries, that the same brothers that you break the huddle down with before every single game, the same guys that you bleed with and go into battle with every single day go home to communities that have been decimated.

Brees didn’t “continue to first criticize.” He has not been continually criticizing the kneeling protests. He didn’t initiate discussion of the topic. Brees was asked by an interviewer what he would do if teammates kneeled during the national anthem.

And while Brees didn’t mention George Floyd, he did acknowledge the suffering of the black community. To remind Jenkins, this is what Brees said:

[I]t brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed, not just [by] those in the military, but … [by] those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and everyone, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go. … we can all do better and … we are all part of the solution.

What exactly did Jenkins mean when he said the kneeling protests were “ignored”? Likely he meant that there were many people who didn’t participate or support the protest. In other words, in Jenkins’ view, the only acceptable way to help decimated black communities is to protest the national anthem. But then isn’t Jenkins doing exactly what he accuses Brees of doing? Isn’t he demanding that everyone believe what he believes about the protests, the flag, and the national anthem?

Jenkins is ignoring that there are white people and black people trying to help decimated black communities. They’ve been trying for years, but they’re shouted down and called bigots for having different views than white and black liberals on how to solve the problems of racism and urban blight. Here are some of their ideas:

• How should we address actual racism committed by racist individuals in police departments—most of which are controlled by liberals? Punish them and/or get rid of them. How do we do that? Revisit/reform “qualified immunity” and policies that conceal police misconduct and protect brutal cops.

• How should we address crime in black communities? Work on transforming society by getting rid of no-fault divorce and using every resource available to promote true marriage and discourage out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Intact families with a mother and a father are the greatest protections against poverty and crime. And when crime is reduced in communities, businesses will move in.

• How do we improve education? Offer impoverished families school choice and end teachers’ unions that promote destructive policies and protect lousy teachers. And stop teaching divisive and false ideas from organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s education arm Teaching Tolerance, or Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, or The 1619 Project that present imbalanced views of American history and teach children of color that because of white oppression, they have no hope of moving up in the world.

• How do we help blacks improve their financial position? Deregulate businesses and reduce taxes in order to grow the economy, thereby providing jobs.

• How do we help eradicate bigotry, bitterness, and hatred? We preach the gospel—the whole gospel.

If Jenkins is concerned about the decimation in his community, why attack Brees? Why not attack “progressives” who have run the cities in which those decimated communities subsist? Why not attack the racism profiteers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who make bank by fomenting racial division? Why not attack liberal leaders who deny school choice to poor black families? Why not attack teachers’ unions that protect lousy teachers in failing schools? Why not attack fatherlessness that results in criminality? Why not attack Black Lives Matter (BLM) that seeks to dismantle families, which are the single best hope for black children?

Here are just some of BLM’s principles and goals:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.

Note that mothers and parents are mentioned but not fathers.

Are those principles and goals helpful to black children? Are they unifying? Are they good?

Jenkins was not done with his accusatory screed:

Drew, unfortunately, you’re somebody who doesn’t understand their privilege. You don’t understand the potential that you have to actually be an advocate for the people that you call brothers.

Will Jenkins stand behind whites who advocate for school choice, true marriage, and the end of teachers’ unions? Will Jenkins cheer whites who advocate against premarital sex and out-of-wedlock births? Will Jenkins cheer whites who advocate for the end of divisive, destructive diversity training and The 1619 Project that teach lies and foster division? Will Jenkins cheer for whites who advocate the ideas of Candace Owens, Thomas Sowell, Ben Carson, Bob Woodson and “1776 Unites” project? Or are whites expected to advocate for only ideas and policies that Jenkins, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nikole Hannah-Jones and her 1619 Project scam promulgate?

Liberals have had fifty years to solve the problems endemic to urban communities of color—including eight years with a black president whose presidency saw black unemployment and racial division surge. Is Jenkins willing to listen to the ideas of others on how to help, how to advocate, how to get involved? Is he willing to listen to diverse ideas on how to rebuild suffering communities? Or will he say to black conservatives what he said to Brees: “you should shut the f–k up.”

It’s ironic that progressives have controlled most major cities for decades and have been forcing Americans in government schools and the corporate world to endure years of “diversity training,” “sensitivity” sessions, and “social justice” indoctrination, and yet we just suffered through the worst race riots since 1968 when Boomers and their rotten ideas began corrupting academia.

Their rotten ideas have—as expected and predicted—produced rotten fruit that is poisoning the hearts and minds of Americans. Race relations had been improving slowly but surely until the Boomers’ ideas seeped from sullied towers in bastions of idiocy like Berkeley to countless colleges and universities and then into high schools. Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege Conferences, and Howard Zinn’s revisionist history of the United States turned young teens’ minds into burbling cauldrons of contempt for America and its founding principles—those very principles that had brought us so far from the days of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and red-lining. With an erroneous understanding of American history, young Americans falsely believe that America was and remains a wholly evil country that must be destroyed and rebuilt in the recriminatory image of “progressives.”

Former NFL coach and Christian Tony Dungy, who likes and respects Drew Brees, expressed disappointment with his initial comments. Dungy said that “we need unifying voices, not divisive voices.” Dungy’s comments were disappointing in that he didn’t address the divisiveness of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, or people like Al Sharpton. He didn’t address the divisiveness of the attacks on Drew Brees for saying—when asked—that he doesn’t agree with kneeling during the national anthem. But you see, Dungy wasn’t asked about any of that, just like Brees was not asked specifically about George Floyd.

Two apologies from Drew Brees and one long one from Mrs. Brees, all of which suggest they have joined BLM. These apologies bring to mind Winston Smith at the end of 1984. Sadly, it doesn’t take torture to get grown men (and women) to capitulate to a destructive ideology. All it takes today is a barrage of insults.

Every day, we see across America signs of hope and progress. We see interracial couples, multi-racial churches, multi-racial groups of friends, and upwardly mobile black families. Is America perfect? Of course not. No society can ever be perfect because humans are fallen creatures. Fallen creatures hate. People of all colors hate. But our founding principles are good, and they are guiding us toward better.

Over a dozen years ago, while working at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois, I was helping a high school junior on her paper for American Studies (still co-taught by the same two teachers today). She cheerily told me that by the end of first semester in American Studies, she hated America and hated being an American. “Social justice” mission accomplished.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Drew-Brees-the-Mob.mp3

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The politically correct or “progressive” crowd found a new target this week: outspoken Christian and Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy.

When asked about “out and proud” football player Michael Sam, the former NFL coach said he would not have drafted Sam had he still been coaching. “I wouldn’t have [drafted] him,” said Dungy. “Not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it.  It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen.”

For this comment, ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann named Dungy the “Worst Person in the World” on Monday night. Condemnations of Dungy came from all over.

This is where the “progressive” movement is. If you hold a view that is not in agreement with theirs, you are to be demonized by them, the progressives, who, ironically, don’t believe in demons.

Why do they do this? Because they, the progressives, consider themselves morally superior to those of us who hold traditional values even though, again, ironically, progressives don’t believe in moral values unless they define them. They moralize against those who promote morality.

The progressive movement is out to destroy our country as it has existed. It is against patriotism. It is against religion in general and is in particular hostile to evangelical Christianity and traditional Catholicism. It is against borders. It is against capitalism. Dare I go on? Sure, why not?

It is for high taxation and government control and regulation of almost everything. It wants people depending on government so they can be controlled. It believes government debt is good. It is against our constitutional Bill of Rights, in particular the First and Second Amendments. It is for abortion on demand even through nine months of pregnancy. It wants to downgrade the American military. It rejects the idea that Western civilization is superior to other civilizations. And it most certainly is for promoting the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movement and punishing people who dare speak against it.

Basically, what I have just described is the platform of the modern-day Democratic Party and the philosophy/agenda of much of the New York/Washington, DC, liberal media, Hollywood and most university campuses. When Barack Obama said he wanted to “fundamentally transform” America, what he was saying to his fellow hardcore progressives was: “I’ve got the wrecking ball ready.”

Sexually, God made man for woman and woman for man. It’s obvious. It’s natural. Progressives can’t stand this. So they are always trying to equate homosexuality with heterosexuality or elevate homosexuality over heterosexuality. When someone like Dungy makes a comment that can in any way be seen as challenging this narrative, then progressives believe that person must be immediately discredited or publicly shamed – no matter the truth of what he is saying.

By the way, having been a sports reporter for a few years I’ve been in many football locker rooms where the players walk around naked or half-naked, changing clothes and going in and out of the showers. Putting a man like Sam, who says he is sexually attracted to men, in with all that beefcake seems unfair to the straight players and a distraction to Sam. Would you put a heterosexual man in the locker room/showers with all the female cheerleaders? Would you tell the girl cheerleaders who objected to this man being in the locker room that they needed to end their bigoted and sexist attitude and treat the man with respect?

Tony Dungy will probably survive being the “worst person in the world.” But the fact that he is in the crosshairs of the PC Gestapo over this comment is chilling to free speech and free thinking.

It’s ironic that the people who now scream the loudest about tolerance have become the least tolerant among us.

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This article was originally posted at the OneNewsNow.com website.

“Foolish: lacking good sense or judgment; unwise”

The Chicago Tribune must have an expansive anti-discrimination hiring policy that prohibits discrimination based on foolishness because the paper hires a boatload of foolish writers. The feckless Trib writer ‘o’ the week is sports writer Steve Rosenbloom who penned an embarrassing piece about the admired football coach Tony Dungy.  To be clear, it is Rosenbloom—not Dungy—who should be embarrassed.

Rosenbloom was in high self-righteous dudgeon over what Dungy said when asked if he would have drafted openly homosexual NFL player Michael Sam. Dungy replied, “I wouldn’t have taken him. Not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it.”

If Rosenbloom had taken a deep breath and done some research, he would have discovered that the “it” in Dungy’s statement, which has caused such moral indignation among the “tolerant,” did not refer to  Sam’s sexual predilections. Rather, “it” referred to the distraction of the media circus that is following Sam, including a now-postponed reality television program for the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

Yes, Dungy wanted to avoid the very distraction that led Sam himself to postpone his reality show. In a May 16 statement, Sam’s agent Cameron Weiss said that an agreement had been reached with the OWN network to postpone the show in order “to ensure no distractions to his teammates.”

Rosenbloom’s presumptuous and error-ridden editorial beckons for a smidge of rebuttal—that is, a small rebuttal to small-minded, superficial thoughts common to the Left.

First, Rosenbloom compares Michael Sam to convicted dog-fighter Michael Vick, claiming that in Dungy’s world, “a man who wants to love another man is worse than a man who supports killing dogs for sport.”

Well, if by Dungy’s “world,” Rosenbloom means orthodox, historic Christendom, he’s wrong. Orthodox Christians have no opposition whatsoever to men loving men. In fact, orthodox Christians deeply treasure loving relationships between men. What orthodox Christians believe is wrong is sexual activity between men which corrupts their love for one another.

Rosenbloom then asks the rhetorical question, “Wasn’t [America] founded on equality?”

Such a free-floating, ambiguous, decontextualized rhetorical question is at best meaningless, at worst devious. The equality our Founding Fathers sought to enshrine in both our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (which “progressives” re-imagine when its original intent doesn’t suit their fancy) had nothing to do with the protean sexual impulses of constitutionally sinful humans. The equality they valued was political equality based on universal, non-behavioral human traits.

Equality demands that we treat like things alike. Homoerotic activity and relationships are neither ontologically nor morally the same as heterosexual activity and relationships. And unions between two people of the same sex are not the same as sexually complementary unions. The belief that they are ontologically the same is objectively false, and the belief that they’re morally the same is an erroneous assumption—not a fact.

No unmarried adult is denied the right to marry. Homosexuals are not demanding the right to marry. They are demanding the unilateral “right” to redefine marriage by jettisoning the most enduring, cross-cultural marital feature. And it is a re-definitional “right,” by the way, that polyamorists, close blood relatives, and “minor-attracted” persons do not enjoy. Being prohibited from unilaterally redefining marriage to suit their desires does not mean homosexuals are prohibited from marrying.

Rosenbloom continues, describing Dungy’s view that marriage is an institution composed of one man and one woman as “sad” and  “unevolved.” Rosenbloom argues that the belief that sexual differentiation is inherent to marriage “downgrades” those who want their homoerotic unions to be recognized legally as marriages. Does Rosenbloom think that the view that marriage is a union of only two people “downgrades” polyamorists?  Does America’s valuation of equality demand that our conceptualization of marriage further evolve to allow the legalization of plural marriages?

And finally, what Leftist anti-marriage, anti-Christ screed would be complete without the inclusion of the old homosexuality=race saw. Rosenbloom asks,  “What if late, great Steelers coach Chuck Noll had not wanted what he thought might be the distraction of hiring a black assistant coach many decades ago?” To reiterate, Dungy did not view Sam’s aberrant sexual feelings as the distraction. Moreover, race (or skin color) per se is not analogous to sexual attraction. Now, racism and homoeroticism do share something in common. Human sin and lousy biblical exegesis resulted in both the cultural embrace of racism and the current cultural embrace of homoerotic identity politics.

The two titles given to Rosenbloom’s editorial aptly convey both Rosenbloom’s ignorance and the ignorance of the “progressive” sexuality dogma that infects so many in the arts, academia, and the mainstream press in America:

Print version title: “Dungy’s hypocrisy biggest distraction”

Online version: “Tony Dungy’s sad, embarrassing world”

Remember these titles next time someone accuses conservatives of being judgmental. Remember too that Christians are commanded to “Judge with righteous judgment.” Righteous judgment—or properly ordered discrimination between right and wrong—is judgment that aligns with biblical truth. All truth is God’s truth, and truth, like God’s nature, does not evolve—not even to accommodate human desire.

It would behoove “progressives” to read a little less from mainstream journalists and a little more from the great American writer Flannery O’Connor who wrote this in a letter to Betty Hester:

But I can never agree with you that…truth, has to satisfy emotionally to be right….It does not satisfy emotionally for the person brought up under many forms of false intellectual discipline….[T]he very notion of God’s existence is not emotionally satisfactory anymore for great numbers of people, which does not mean that God ceases to exist…. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

Tony Dungy’s views on marriage are views shared by countless Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant,  and Jewish scholars working in prestigious colleges, universities, and seminaries today (not to mention throughout history).  These women and men believe that homoerotic activity is immoral, that it effaces the image of God written on human beings, and that it undermines human flourishing. To affirm such activity would constitute a profoundly unloving act. No loving person affirms that which puts at risk the temporal and eternal lives of others.

These scholars are men and women recognized for their academic accomplishments and their civil treatment of others, including those with whom they disagree on homoerotic activity and marriage. How is it possible that “progressives” look at the lives of men and women like Ryan Anderson, Hadley Arkes, Michael Brown, J. Budziszewki, Anthony Esolen, John Finnis, Robert Gagnon, Robert George, Sherif Girgis , Vigen Guroian, David Bentley Hart, Peter Leithart, Russell Moore, Francesca Aran Murphy, David Novak, Michael Novak, John Piper, Alexander Pruss, R. Reno, Elizabeth Scalia, Andrew Wilson, Doug Wilson, and N.T. Wright—scholars all—and claim that they are ignorant, hateful bigots? It defies reason and evidence to suggest that all these scholars and the scores of others who share their views are motivated by ignorance, stupidity, or blind hatred.

But it’s clear that the Left is not motivated by a desire for truth, nor constrained by lack of evidence. Toss in a few cliché shibboleths like “equality” and “homophobia,” and they win the demagogic battle for the hearts of unthinking Americans who love nothing so much as being part of the cool group.

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