Graduation speeches are like life and Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get.

I’m so accustomed to headline-making controversies touched off by commencement speakers whose views tilt to the left that the Harrison Butker dustup caught me by surprise.

Until now, the public has known Butker, 28, as simply a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, helping them to Super Bowl wins in recent years. But in recent weeks his profile has grown thanks to his May 11 address at Benedictine College, a private Catholic institution in Kansas, in which he took on a range of hot-button issues, including Pride Month, abortion access and the Biden administration’s pandemic positions.

I appreciated his candor. He is a faithful Catholic known in those circles for being an outspoken conservative and was speaking at a Catholic institution to a polite audience that gave him a standing ovation at the end of his 20-minute speech.

He warned us at the beginning that he intended to say the “difficult stuff out loud” and that he had “gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind.” Indeed. As a fatherly talk show host once advised me, “When you have the microphone, Page, use........

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