Baseball Player Won’t Kneel During National Anthem: “I Can’t Kneel Before Anything But God”, by Tony Perkins

WASHINGTON, DC – If fans flipped on their TVs hoping for an escape from the madness of 2020, the return of major league baseball wasn’t it. Americans who tuned in to Friday’s season openers, desperate for a return to something normal, were forced to witness another protest: the players’. In some ballparks, like the Washington Nationals, the politically-charged messaging was everywhere — from the Black Lives Matter “unity” ribbons to the “BLM” stenciled on the back of the pitchers’ mound. But when the entire league is kneeling, it only takes one player to stand out. And for the Giants’ Sam Coonrod, there was never any question.

“I’m just a Christian,” he said after the game. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody,” he tried to explain. “I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel, I’d be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.” Unlike a lot of Americans, Sam knows that there’s a lot more to the Black Lives Matter organization than the slogan. “[I] just can’t get on board with a couple things I’ve read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean towards Marxism and … they said some negative things about the nuclear family.” At the end of the day, Sam explained, he doesn’t mean any “ill will.” But it’s time, he would argue, for our country to realize what’s really behind the hashtag.  ….