Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Thursday said he is investigating the office of Democratic Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas after it reportedly “doxxed” Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker in an X (formerly Twitter) post.
The alleged leaking of Butker’s personal information came days after he gave the commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas over the weekend.
There, Butker encouraged graduates at the small Catholic college to “be authentically and unapologetically Catholic.” He also spoke positively about marriage and motherhood, but criticized the abortion industry and the LGBTQ movement.
Bailey wrote to Lucas in a letter dated Thursday: “It has been reported that the city of Kansas City has retaliated against a well-respected local resident and member of the Kansas City Chiefs after he spoke about his religious views.”
The attorney general continued:
Your office’s X account likely publicly released residential location information on a private citizen, Harrison Butker, in an attempt to retaliate against him for expressing his sincerely held religious beliefs at a religious college’s commencement ceremony–to an audience that largely shares his views.
“Use of government social media to retaliate against an individual based on their religious beliefs amounts to discriminatory behavior that is not tolerated under our Constitution or Missouri statute,” Bailey cautioned.
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In his letter, Bailey specified that “Missouri law specifically prohibits faith-based discrimination against Missouri residents.”
“Yet, your office apparently believes it is appropriate to denigrate a devout Catholic for comments he made about his own faith at a religious college,” Bailey wrote to Lucas. “Missouri’s Human Rights Act prohibits government actors from discriminating against citizens because of their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
“In addition to the city of Kansas City’s attack on Mr. Butker, there is an effort to force his employer to take disciplinary action against him,” the attorney general wrote, referring to a petition that has garnered over 190,000 signatures in four days.
“To any employer or government official considering such a move, I assure you that I am prepared to use the authority provided in statute to defend the principle of free religious expression,” Bailey wrote.
Kansas City’s X account eventually deleted its controversial post. The account wrote on Wednesday night:
“We apologies for our previous tweet. It was shared in error.”
LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
