Craig James: Firing from Fox Sports 'Wake-up Call' to All Religious Americans

Craig James: Firing from Fox Sports 'Wake-up Call' to All Religious Americans

Former college football player and broadcaster Craig James, whom Fox Sports fired because of his support of traditional marriage in accordance with his Christian religious beliefs, appeared on Breitbart News Sunday and said his ordeal needed to be a “wake-up call” for Americans whose religious liberty is under assault.

Appearing on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125 with Breitbart News Executive Chairman and host Stephen K. Bannon, James said Americans who “enjoy our religious liberty” must “stand boldly and passionately and be heard on this because the other side is being heard on the positions they hold.”

In reference to Fox Sports executives, James said he is “not going to let someone who committed such a heinous wrong get away with it” and mentioned that at this point, “we’ve not heard from them.”

James said he hoped his experience would be a “continued wake-up call to Americans” and “to people who have a faith.” He said he was standing up for Americans whose religious liberty is under assault and who do not have a platform to fight back.

James said Fox Sports had contacted him if he had an interest in getting back into broadcasting. But on the day after he taped his first show for Fox Sports Southwest, he was told his “services were no longer needed.”

Then, James said he found out the day after he got fired that he was canned because of a position he took on traditional marriage 15 months earlier as a Senate candidate in Texas. James said, “it is my Biblical belief that [marriage] is between a man and a woman.”

James said he could not have known that his “Biblical belief would haunt me down the road” and “cost me my job.” He emphasized he would rather be “Biblically correct and not politically correct.”

“I have that right to have that Biblical belief,” James said on Breitbart News Sunday.

Hiram Sasser, of the Liberty Institute, which filed the lawsuit on James’s behalf, said it was shocking that a human resources professional at Fox Sports essentially said that since James would not be able to openly express his views on marriage that are consistent with 76% of those in the state of Texas in Fox Sports’s office, he could not be at the network. 

In addition, Sasser said that though Fox Sports could have “canned him” and swept it “under the rug,” they instead engaged in a “public smear campaign” in order to “justify their firing” and “get kudos” for it. Sasser said Fox Sports tried to use James’s firing to send a message to elites that those who share the values of middle Americans and want to exercise their religious liberty were not welcome at Fox Sports. 

As Breitbart Sports has previously reported, Sasser, of the Liberty Institute, filed a motion to get Fox Sports Co-President Eric Shanks, Co-President Randy Freer, and Fox Sports Southwest Manager Jon Heidtke to give sworn testimony regarding this situation. James is seeking to get reinstated as well. 

James has previously said that his agent informed him that Shanks made “the Godfather call” to fire him. 

He said this ordeal has touched “my hot button,” which he said was his “faith button,” and emphasized that he was standing up for people who “don’t have a chance to get on the radio or television set.”

“God is in control of my storm right now,” James said, mentioning that he felt God placed this ordeal in his path for a reason. 

He mentioned that he worships his “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have never hid from that, and I never will hide from it.”

James also emphasized to people who may not have liked him as a broadcaster or a player that this was not about “Craig James.” He said this fight was about “everyone who has a belief and their freedom to hold that belief.”

“That’s why I’m fighting this,” James said. “This is about all of us.”

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