FACT CHECK: Posts Make Unsupported Claim About Kansas City Chiefs and Pride Month
Quick Take
The Kansas City Chiefs offer a “Pride Collection” of merchandise for the team’s LGBTQ+ fans. But social media posts are making the unsupported claim that the team “Refuses to Participate in Pride Month” this year. The claim apparently originated in a satirical article, and we could find no announcement from the team regarding this year’s Pride Month.
Full Story
Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Uprising for gay rights in Manhattan on June 28, 1969, and celebrates the contributions of LGBTQ+ people with parades and other events throughout June.
But this year’s observance of Pride Month has been met in the U.S. with increasing anti-gay hostility, following passage last year of what ABC News said were a record number of state laws negatively affecting the LGBTQ+ community. The anti-gay sentiment has also been reflected in misinformation on social media, as we’ve written before.
The text on a June 8 Facebook post falsely claimed, “NFL Team Kansas City Chiefs Refuses To Participate In Pride Month, ‘It’s Extremely Woke.’” The post received more than 34,000 likes. A post with the same photos of a Pride parade juxtaposed with uniformed Chiefs players was shared on Threads, also claiming the team refused to participate in Pride Month, and carried the caption, “KANSAS CITY CHIEFS STANDING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS AND TRUTH WITH THE WORD OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST NAME.”
The kicker for the Super Bowl champion team, Harrison Butker, criticized the celebration of Pride Month — among other controversial remarks he made about women and cultural values — during his commencement address at a private Kansas college on May 11, as we wrote. In that speech, Butker referred in passing to Pride Month as “the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it.”
But we could find no statement issued by the Chiefs team about the celebration of Pride Month on the Chiefs’ website, X account or other social media. In fact, the Chiefs’ website includes what it calls a “Pride Collection” of merchandise for fans. Many of the items incorporate the team logo with the symbolic Pride rainbow, including hats, flags, signs and T-shirts that say, “LOVE WINS.”
A headline identical to the wording on the social media posts appeared June 6 on the website SpaceXMania. The article included a “SATIRE” label above the headline. The website includes a “Disclaimer” that states, in part, “All the information on this website – SpaceXMania.com – is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. SpaceXMania does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability, and accuracy of this information.”
The social media posts do not include a “satire” label, however.
The June 8 Facebook post includes a link to an online article published on a website called News Today as evidence of its claim about the team’s stance on Pride Month. The headline on the article reads, “Breaking: The Kansas City Chiefs, an NFL franchise, declines involvement in Pride Month festivities, citing them as overly ‘woke.’” The article is a nearly word-for-word reprint of the satirical story that appeared on the SpaceXMania site.
We reached out to the Chiefs for a response to the claim, but we didn’t receive a response.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Sources
Alfonseca, Kiara. “Record number of anti-LGBTQ legislation filed in 2023.” ABC News. 28 Dec 2023.
FactCheck.org. Issues: LGBTQ.
Jaffe, Alan. “Pearl Jam Singer’s Criticism of Harrison Butker Didn’t Affect Concert Schedule.” FactCheck.org. 23 May 2024.
Jones, Brea. “Posts Misrepresent Virtual Rainbow on Arc de Triomphe for Pride Month.” FactCheck.org. 12 Jun 2023.
Kansas City Chiefs. Pride Collection. shop.chiefs.com. Accessed 11 Jun 2024.
Lavietes, Matt. “LGBTQ Pride Month kicks off with bias-fueled pushback.” NBC News. 5 Jun 2024.
Library of Congress. About Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Month. Accessed 11 Jun 2024.
Macaluso, Nora. “Viral Video Makes False Claim About Pride Month Flag Display.” FactCheck.org. 14 Jun 2023.
