San Francisco Giants pitcher, Sam Coonrod, has said that he will not kneel for Black Lives Matter because he is a Christian and will only kneel before God.
The baseball star was the only MLB player who remained standing as players from the Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers knelt for BLM prior to the season opener. Coonrod did, however, join players as they held up a long black ribbon provided by the MLB to honour the Black Lives Matter movement.
Coonrod later explained, "I'm a Christian, so I just believe that I can't kneel before anything besides God," according to TMZ.
The pitcher insisted that he meant "no ill will" towards the BLM movement, and said, "I don't think I'm better than anybody. I'm just a Christian ... I feel if I did kneel I'd be a hypocrite. I don't want to be a hypocrite," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
He added, "I just can't get on board with a couple things I've read about Black Lives Matter, how they lean toward Marxism. And … they said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can't get on board with that."
He further explained: "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."
He received the support of Giants manager, Gabe Kapler, who said that he respected Coonrod's decision not to kneel, saying: "We were going to give them the choice on whether they were going to stand, kneel or do something else. That was a personal decision for Sam."
Meanwhile, Christian author Michael Brown, who hosts daily talk show "The Line of Fire," recently called the Black Lives Matter organisation "dangerous" and "anti-Christian". He argued that the BLM organisation "should be avoided."
