Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe
has called the arguments of gay marriage foes invalid.
Kluwe is profiled in a cover story for
Minneapolis-St. Paul alternative City Pages.
The 30-year-old Kluwe has become an
outspoken supporter of marriage equality and an ardent opponent of a
proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution defining marriage as
a heterosexual union.
While Kluwe's advocacy goes back a
ways, it was the recent letter in response to a Maryland lawmaker in
which he stated that allowing gay nuptials wouldn't turn him into a
“lustful cock monster” that turned Kluwe into a marriage equality
spokesperson.
Esera Tuaola, a former Vikings player
who came out gay in 2002 after retiring, compared Kluwe to Martin
Luther King.
“I teared up,” Tuaola said of
Kluwe's letter. “For me, it was like Martin Luther King's I
Have a Dream speech.”
Kluwe dismissed the arguments of
opponents, calling them not logical.
“You see all these arguments against
gay marriage, and they all kind of logically boil down to: 'It makes
me feel icky,'” he told the paper. “That's not a valid logical
argument! Like, tell me that gay people getting married is going to
cause someone to steal your garage door opener, or it's going to
cause your dog to poop in your front yard. I can argue against
that!”
(Related: Chris
Kluwe debates Michele Bachmann, Mark Birk on gay marriage.)