Former NFL Star Tells ‘Over-Tanned Ham Hock’ Trump ‘What We Really Talk About in the Locker Room’

LGBT Ally Chris Kluwe Writes Another Open Letter to Another Bigot, as Only He Can

Back in 2012, before same-sex marriage was the law of the land, star NFL Vikings punter Chris Kluwe wrote an open letter to a Maryland lawmaker who had asked the coach of another team to reign in the LGBT support of another player, Brendon Ayanbadejo.Â That letter, which went viral, included this amazingly wonderfully colorful observation:

“I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They wonâ€™t come into your house and steal your children. They wonâ€™t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They wonâ€™t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our populationâ€”rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children.”

Kluwe along the way continued to fight for marriage equality and LGBT civil rights, and, may even have lost his job with the Vikings as a result. But he hasn’t stopped championing what’s right. He’s still working to support the LGBT community and others:

On Monday Vox published Kluwe’s open letter to Donald Trump, after the GOP nominee claimed his descriptions of sexual assault in a now infamous 2005 tape was nothing more than “locker room talk.”

Kluwe explainsÂ to Trump that he “was in an NFL locker room for eight years, the very definition of the macho, alpha male environment you’re so feebly trying to evoke to protect yourself, and not once did anyone approach your breathtaking depths of arrogant imbecility,” and adds, “hell, I played a couple years with a guy who later turned out to be a serial rapist. Even he never talked like that.”

In his usual colorful use of language (see above), Kluwe tells Trump, “You’re wrong, and only the type of wrong an over-tanned ham hock like yourself can accomplish, plummeting past the morass of gross incivility into the abyss of depraved sociopathy.”

A few more excerpts:

We talk about our families. We talk about our significant others, our children, and our parents. We talk about our fears that if a Hitler wannabe who can’t even string together a coherent statement on domestic policy becomes president, what that might mean for those of us who are married to a member of a minority community, orÂ areÂ a member of a minority community, or have children going to schools where hopefully nobody screams racial epithets at them or tells them to go back to [insert foreign country they couldn’t identify on a map here].

We talk about travel. We talk about the cities we’ve seen, the stadiums we’ve played in, what vacations we might take in the offseason. We talk about what country might make a good safe haven if a Russian-backed presidential candidate whose foreign policy agenda can best be described as “gross negligence mixed with a spicy dash of treason” were to have control of our nation’s nuclear arsenal, and whether his stubby little baby fingers are strong enough to push in the launch codes on sturdy military-grade hardware.

We talk about money. We talk about what other guys at our position are making, what our next contract might look like, and how much paying taxes each year sucks, since we’re in the highest tax bracket and play in multiple states, requiring multiple filings. We talk about howÂ allof us pay taxes, every year, and wonder what a presidential candidate might have to hide if he so stubbornly refuses to release his returns, what possible foreign debts might be lurking in that finance closet he so desperately holds shut with every ounce of his contemptible mental faculties.

Kluwe goes on to make the point that even in locker rooms, teammates hold each other accountable, and so, Trump’s language would never be tolerated. Nor would his behavior be tolerated.Â

In a professional sports environment, all of us are accountable to each other. We’re a team. If one of us messes up on the field, it affects everyone. Just like if a president makes a bad decision, it affects everyone. And do you know, Donald, the only way the team wins games? The only way we win is if, in the locker room, we’re willing to accept that accountability, address our mistakes, and work asÂ hard as we possibly canÂ to make sure those mistakes don’t happen again.

Kluwe signs his letter:

Sincerely,

Chris Kluwe

Former NFL player, proud father of two daughters Iâ€™m afraid you would eagerly deport and/or molest, American citizen