Minnesota Vikings Punter Chris Kluwe believes he was cut from his team before the 2013 NFL season because of his views on gay rights.

The athlete is speaking out against what he believes was an unjust firing. He released a letter to Deadspin, published Thursday, Jan. 2, titled, "I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot."

Kluwe wrote in detail why he believes his gay rights activism got him fired, though he noted he can't be sure.

"I honestly don't know if my activism was the reason I got fired. However, I'm pretty confident it was," he said. "This is a story about how actions have consequences, no matter how just or moral you think your cause happens to be, and it's a story about the price people all too often pay for speaking out."

The accounts Kluwe wrote down are ones that happened to him during the 2012 NFL season. The letter stated whom in specific his gripe was toward. The "two cowards" were head coach Leslie Frazier and general manager Rick Spielman. The "bigot" was Vikings special team coach Mike Priefer.

Although Kluwe mentioned Frazier and Spielman tried to silence him regarding his views on marriage equality, most of his beef is toward Priefer.

He wrote that once Priefer heard he was speaking out for gay equality, the coach berated him with homophobic lines. Priefer allegedly told him once, "We should round up all the gays, send them to an island and nuke it until it glows."

Priefer defended himself by releasing a statement on Jan. 2, saying, "I personally have gay family members who I love and support just as I do any family member."

Kluwe's reason for referring to Spielman and Frazier as "cowards" is because of their alleged attempts to silence him.

"Leslie Frazier, called me into his office after our morning special-teams meeting. I anticipated it would be about the letter (punters aren't generally called into the principal's office). Once inside, Coach Frazier immediately told me that I 'needed to be quiet, and stop speaking out on this stuff.' "

Kluwe was a member of Minnesotans for Marriage during the 2012 NFL season and often went to events for the cause. His most famous moment of activist came in the form of a letter to Maryland delegate Emmet C. Burns Jr., where he called her out for "vitriolic hatred and bigotry."

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