Georgia Senate passes resolution criticizing NFL after anti-kneeling Super Bowl advert is rejected

The Georgia state Senate has voted unanimously to pass a resolution that condemns the NFL for rejecting a Super Bowl advert that would have criticised players for kneeling during the national anthem during at games.

The advert, which was produced by a veterans group, shows three service members holding a flag next to text that says “#PleaseStand”.

“When America’s veterans try to exercise their free speech, the NFL has no problem telling them to sit down and shut up,” Sen David Shafer, the Republican who drafted the resolution, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Mr Shafer is also running to become Georgia’s lieutenant governor.

The resolution calls the NFL’s rejection of the advert a “pious and self serving” decision, and accuses the league of abandoning “even the pretence of supporting free speech and dissent” while tacitly approving “organised disrespect and contempt for the Flag of the United States and the National Anthem.”

The resolution’s passage also came one day after President Donald Trump, who stoked the issue last year, revisited the issue during his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. Mr Trump had invited a young boy who has been devoting his time to making sure US military veteran graves are decorated with American flags.

Those efforts, Mr Trump said, “remind us… why we proudly stand for the national anthem.”

Players first started kneeling during the national anthem two years ago when Colin Kaepernick decided to protest police brutality in the United States. Kaepernick, who first started his protest by sitting down on a team bench during the anthem, ultimately began kneeling after advisers of his convinced him doing so would be more respectful.

Stil, Mr Trump has attempted to rebrand the protest, saying that standing or sitting is a referendum on one’s patriotism and love of the United States.