Craig James, a former NFL player and
sports commentator for ABC and ESPN, has criticized the three
professional sports teams urging the Supreme Court to legalize
same-sex marriage.
The San Francisco Giants, Tampa Bay
Rays and New England Patriots are among the 379 companies that have
signed on to an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to
strike down state bans on gay marriage.
(Related: New
England Patriots, San Francisco Giants, Tampa Bay Rays support
marriage equality.)
James, 54, joined Family Research
Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins on his Washington Watch
radio program this week.
“If I were a current player in that
locker room and my livelihood depended on me being quiet or losing it
because of my belief system, I worry, I wonder. So, that's Satan
working on us,” said
James, who retired from the Patriots in 1988.
In 2013, James was fired from Fox
Sports after anti-gay remarks he had made a year earlier surfaced.
During a failed Senate campaign, James said that being gay is “a
choice” and that gays will “have to answer to the Lord for their
actions.”