Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy
accepted an award from the Indiana Family Institute, an
organization that fights against gay rights in the state of
Indiana, last Tuesday evening. While the Colts organization
has outwardly attempted to distance itself from the event,
Dungy said in his acceptance speech that the award
recognized the Colts as well as him.
"I'd just
like to say thank you to IFI for bestowing this award on my
family that we accept not only on behalf of our family, but
on behalf of the Colts organization," Dungy said.
A partial
transcript of Dungy's acceptance speech is below, and a
video of his speech can be found at the
Focus on the Family Web site. Thanks to
Good As
You for pointing us to the video.
Dungy
speech transcript:
"There's
been a little bit of publicity about my coming here. And
there's some people that would really like me to just accept
this award and say thank you but not really . . . it was
even suggested to me that I should say, 'thank you but the
views of the IFI don't necessarily reflect my personal
views,' and a lot of people would love me to say that. They
don't know me very well, and they don't know, they don't
know that that's not the way I operate.
"But
there's some people that try to take one issue, of all the
great things IFI is doing, they try to take one issue and
spotlight that, and say, well, which side are you on, are
you on this side or are you on that side. And it kind of
reminds me of a story in the Bible, when Joshua was getting
ready to go into battle and he saw this figure with a sword,
it was an awesome figure out there, and he said, boy I gotta
figure out whose side are you on, are you on our side, the
Israelites' side, are you on the enemy's side. And the angel
of the Lord said neither one, I'm on the Lord's side, whose
side are you on. And that's what I feel like telling people
when they look at this issue of same-sex marriage … I'm not
on anybody's side, I'm on the Lord's side, okay?
"And
because IFI is saying what the Lord says, you can take that
and you can make your decision which way you want to be. I'm
on the Lord's side, and I appreciate IFI for the stance
their taking, and I embrace that stance, okay, and that's
important.
"Family is
important, and that's what we're trying to support. We're
not anti anything else, we're not trying to downgrade anyone
else, hate anyone else, but we're trying to promote the
family, family values, the Lord's way, just like I'm trying
to win on the football field the Lord's way. No different.
I'm on the Lord's side when I'm on the field, I'm on the
Lord's side when I'm off the field.
"But I
would just like to say thank you to our community for
embracing my family here in Indianapolis, I'd like to say
thank you to our team and our organization for being not
only a great place to work and great young men to coach, but
just wonderful examples of what an organization can be doing
it the right way, and I'd just like to say thank you to IFI
for bestowing this award on my family that we accept not
only on behalf of our family, but on behalf of the Colts
organization. Thank you so much."
