I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot
Hello. My name is Chris Kluwe, and for eight years I was the punter for the Minnesota Vikings. In May 2013, the Vikings released me from the team. At the time, quite a few people asked me if I thought it was because of my recent activism for same-sex marriage rights, and I was very careful in how I answered the question. My answer, verbatim, was always, "I honestly don't know, because I'm not in those meetings with the coaches and administrative people."
This is a true answer. I honestly don't know if my activism was the reason I got fired. However, I'm pretty confident it was.
Allow myself to tell you a story about ... myself. The following is a record of what happened to me during my 2012 season with the Minnesota Vikings, written down immediately after the 2013 draft in April, when I realized what was happening, and revised recently only for clarity. I tried to keep things as objective as possible, and anything you see in quotes are words that I directly recall being said to me.
This is a story about how actions have consequences, no matter how just or moral you think your cause happens to be, and it's a story about the price people all too often pay for speaking out...
Much more at link: http://deadspin.com/i-was-an-nfl-player-until-i-was-fired-by-two-cowards-an-1493208214
Edit to add the team's response: http://www.queerty.com/minnesota-vikings-plan-to-thoroughly-review-chris-kluwes-allegation-that-homophobia-led-to-his-firing-20140102/
