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Former NFL running back and ESPN commentator Craig James of Celina, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2012, is working with Plano-based Liberty Institute in asking Fox Sports to reconsider his firing after the network said James’ views on homosexuality were incompatible with its workplace environment.
In an email to Liberty Institute supporters, President and CEO Kelly Shackelford said Liberty is “demanding that they reinstate Craig to his position as on-air college football analyst and stop discriminating against him. View the Demand Letter here.”
“We need your help,” the letter continues. “Please call Dan Bell, Vice President of Communications for Fox Sports at 310-369-7771, or send him an email at dan.bell@fox.com. Tell him to restore religious liberty and return Craig James back to the airwaves.
“Craig’s love and respect for all people have made him a model colleague who works well with people of various perspectives,” the letter says. “He only asks for the same tolerance he shows others.”
James worked the first weekend of the college football season for Fox without a permanent contract. The following Monday he was fired when a video of a Republican primary debate surfaced with Craig stating, “People choose to be gay … I think it’s a choice. I do. Same-sex marriage, if someone chooses to do that, that’s done. And God’s going to judge each one of us in this room for our actions. And in that case right there, they’re going to have to answer to the Lord for their actions.”
After James was fired, a Fox spokesman told the Dallas Morning News, “We just asked ourselves how Craig’s statements would play in our human resources department. He couldn’t say those things here.”
James starred alongside another famous running back, Eric Dickerson, at Southern Methodist University in the famed “Pony Express” of the early 1980s.
After retiring from football in 1988, James worked on SMU football radio broadcasts and later for ABC television and then CBS television before rejoining ABC/ESPN in 1998, a stint that lasted until his announced run for the Senate in 2011.
James told Breitbart.com: “I have worked in broadcasting for twenty-four years and have always treated my colleagues with respect and dignity regardless of their background or personal beliefs. I believe it is essential in our business to maintain professional relationships with people from a diverse background and have tolerance for those of different beliefs. I have never discussed my faith while broadcasting and it has never been an issue until now.”
