{"id":2725,"date":"2013-06-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2725"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:30:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:30:37","slug":"baltimore-ravens-center-matt-birk-passes-on-meeting-with-the-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2725","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk declines meeting with the President"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Great! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Matt_Birk\" target=\"_self\">Matt Birk<\/a> is a Harvard graduate, six time Pro Bowl selection, has six children and his wife volunteers with a crisis pregnancy group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/nfl-champ-skips-wh-visit-because-obama-said-god-bless-planned-parenthood\/article\/2531299\" target=\"_self\">Retired Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk, who won a Super Bowl with the team last year, skipped the team\u2019s visit to the White House due to President Obama\u2019s support for Planned Parenthood.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI have great respect for the office of the presidency but about five or<br>\nsix weeks ago, our president made a comment in a speech and he said,<br>\n\u2018God bless Planned Parenthood,\u2019\u201d Birk, a former Minnesota Viking, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kfan.com\/pages\/vikingsblog.html?article=11361151#ixzz2VSXgUxcq\">told a local Minnesota sports blog<\/a>.<br>\n\u201cI\u2019m very confused by [Obama&#8217;s] statement,\u201d he explained. \u201c\u201dFor God to<br>\nbless a place where they\u2019re ending 330,000 lives a year? I just chose<br>\nnot to attend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"167\" src=\"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/6a00d834525a2f69e201901d1ac46a970b-250wi.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11940\" title=\"Matt_Birk_Ravens_Training_Camp_August_5,_2009\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great! Matt Birk is a Harvard graduate, six time Pro Bowl selection, has six children and his wife volunteers with a crisis pregnancy group. Retired Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk, who won a Super Bowl with the team last year, skipped the team\u2019s visit to the White House due to President Obama\u2019s support for Planned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11941,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions\/11941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}