A pitcher for the San Francisco Giants cited his Christian faith as the reason he refused to kneel prior to the national anthem in a team-wide show of unity for Black Lives Matter.
Pitcher Sam Coonrod, who is in his second season with the team, was the only player on either team not to kneel. Every manager, coach and staff member also kneeled, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“I’m a Christian … and I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter,” Coonrod said, referencing the national organization, not the movement. “How they lean toward Marxism and they’ve said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can’t get on board with that.”
Coonrod, who made his Major League Baseball debut in 2019, said he “meant no ill will by it.”
“I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I’m just a Christian. I believe I can’t kneel before anything but God, Jesus Christ. I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel I’d be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
Coonrod’s comments reflect a debate among the wider Christian community over the organization’s stances. Black Lives Matter, founded in 2013, says on its website: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another.”
The 27-year-old hopes that others can respect his right to freely choose. “People get mad whenever someone disagrees,” Coonrod said. “I’m not mad at someone who decided to kneel. I just don’t think it’s too much to ask that I just get the same respect.”