When New England Patriots running back TreVeyon Henderson cited his religion this week to support anti-gay remarks by NBA player Jaden Ivey, he was using a playbook not unique in the NFL.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Henderson wrote, citing a Bible verse in the New Testament Book of Matthew. He was praising Ivey after the player was cut by the Chicago Bulls following an anti-gay, anti-Pride social media rant.
The running back went on a further tirade against gay people, citing Biblical verses. When asked what he would say to Henderson, retired player Ryan O’Callaghan, who is gay and a former Patriot, said, “The first thing I would do is find information about a sports psychologist and discretely leave it in his locker.”
Henderson is one of at least six players over the years, including one Hall of Famer, to cite religion in opposing LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage. In addition to Henderson, here are five more.
White played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers from 1985-2000 and is in the Hall of Fame as one of the greatest defensive players ever. On the subject of gay people, though, White was a total homophobe.
“The Bible strictly speaks against it,” he said about homosexuality, “and because the Bible speaks against it, we allow rampant sin including homosexuality and lying, and to me lying is just as bad as homosexuality, we’ve allowed this sin to run rampant in our nation, and because it has run rampant in our nation, our nation is in the condition it is today.”
“I’m offended that homosexuals will say that homosexuals deserve rights,” was another one of his broadsides against LGBTQ people.
White died in 2004 and some reports said that he regretted those remarks. We’ll never know if time would have seen White change his views since he was only 43 when he died.
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Cousins, a quarterback who signed for the 2026 season Thursday with the Las Vegas Raiders, has long worn his religion on his sleeve and while he seems amiable enough, his views on gay people are that they can be changed.
“From a football standpoint, if the guy can help us win, come help us win,” Cousins said when asked if he would support a gay teammate. “Now, there are a lot of teammates in my locker room right now who may not have a homosexual lifestyle, but they have sins, too. They’re not perfect. So I don’t say they can’t help us win. Nobody’s perfect. To that degree, we’d welcome him into our locker room and say come help us win, and hopefully I can love him like Jesus and hopefully show him what it means to follow Jesus.”
Tyree is best-known for his helmet catch that helped the New York Giants shock the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl in the 2007 season.
“Perhaps God orchestrated that play to give me a platform for what I’m doing here today: To urge political leaders all over our nation to reject same-sex marriage,” he said in 2011.
“Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored,” he said. “Being the fact that I firmly believe that God created and ordained marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that that’s something that should be fought for at all costs.”
Asked if he’d give up the Super Bowl to stop gay marriage, Tyree said: “Honestly, I probably would.”
Birk, the longtime center for the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Ravens, was active in the fight to stop same-sex marriage in the early 2010s as a spokesman for the Catholic Church.
“If we allow genderless marriage to become law, the implication is that the contributions of part of our society, either men or women, are insignificant or less valuable,” Birk said in 2012 in opposing same-sex marriage in Maryland.
Butker, the Kansas City Chiefs kicker, used a 2024 commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas, to criticize feminism and LGBTQ people.
In discussing the college’s shift to more conservative views, he said it was a source of pride and “not the deadly sins sort of Pride that has an entire month dedicated to it, but the true God-centered pride that is cooperating with the holy ghost to glorify him.”
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