NFL quarterback Kirk Cousins partnered with a rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ hate group

Kirk Cousins, starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, recently appeared in a broadcast touting his support for the rapidly anti-LGBTQ+ organization Focus on the Family (FOTF).

In the 34-minute video, Cousins engages in conversation with the organization’s chief operating officer, Ken Windebank, in front of a live audience.

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Cousins spoke at length about his devotion to Jesus and scripture. “You have to trust God’s plan for your life, and you have to believe He has a plan,” he declared.

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He also said, “There are consequences to the choices you make in life. Good or bad. And if you sow good things you’ll reap good things. But if you sow poor decisions, you’ll reap poor decisions.”

While the conversation did not specifically address LGBTQ+ issues, FOTF has long been known as one of the nation’s most prominent anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.

The organization has called the LGBTQ+ rights movement a “particularly evil lie of Satan.” It opposes same-sex marriage and sex education in schools (except “abstinence-only”), supports so-called conversion therapy, and generally opposes anything that promotes the so-called “homosexual agenda” — even concepts of tolerance and diversity which, according to founder James Dobson, are “buzzwords for homosexual advocacy.” 

According to the group, the goals of the “homosexual movement” include “universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, the discrediting of Scriptures that condemn homosexuality, muzzling of the clergy and Christian media, granting special privileges and rights in the law, overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia, indoctrination of children and future generations through public education, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for any two or more people who claim to have homosexual tendencies.”

FOTF’s website says that same-sex couples are “confused” and “they need God’s help to follow Him” and claims that pro-transgender laws “allow dangerous individuals open admission to public accommodations.”

Both Cousins and the Minnesota Vikings refused to answer questions from OutSports about Cousins’s endorsement of the group, though the publication did call the Vikings “one of the most outwardly LGBTQ-inclusive teams in the NFL.”

Cousins did not address LGBTQ+ issues in his recent conversation, but in 2014, he called homosexuality a sin, saying he’d still welcome a gay teammate because “nobody’s perfect” and he would try to teach him to “follow Jesus.”

“Now, there are a lot of teammates in my locker room right now who may not have a homosexual lifestyle, but they have sins, too,” he told MLive at the time. “They’re not perfect. So I don’t say they can’t help us win. Nobody’s perfect. To that degree, we’d welcome him into our locker room and say come help us win, and hopefully I can love him like Jesus and hopefully show him what it means to follow Jesus.”

Outsports broke the story of Cousins’s FOTF appearance after being alerted by a Vikings fan, who wrote, “It doesn’t matter how innocuous the content in the video is. Focus on the Family has consistently pushed for abhorrent policies and to enshrine their views into American law. For the Vikings’ franchise quarterback to partner with them is shocking, disappointing, and runs counter to the image the Vikings have tried to project.”