Former Green Bay Packers safety Leroy Butler woke up Monday morning excited to see that Jason Collins, a 12-year veteran of the NBA, had come out publicly as a gay man in America.
Butler was so moved, in fact, that he jumped on Twitter to address his adulation.
Harmless tweet, right? A message all sorts of professional athletes and public figures sent out on Monday.
But Butler’s little tweet evidently carried big ramifications. He took to Twitter a day later to explain everything that went down.
“Wow, I was schedule[d] to speak at a church in WI, and a member said that the pastor wants to cancel my event,” he wrote. “I said ‘Ok, why?’ Then I was told [it was] because I said congrats to Jason Collins on Twitter.”
Collins added that the two parties had a contract but the church told him to “check the moral cause.”
“The fee was $8,500. I was told if I removed the tweet, and apologized[d] and ask God forgiveness, I can have the event,” he wrote. “I said no.”
Image via Leroy Butler/Facebook
