Vice President Mike Pence said that he walked out of a football game on Sunday after several 49ers players protested the national anthem by kneeling because he “will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.”

Pence, Indiana’s former governor, attended a game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers along with his wife, second lady Karen Pence. The vice president said they showed up to honor former quarterback Peyton Manning at his retirement ceremony while his No. 18 jersey was being retired. But when several 49ers took the knee while the national anthem was being played before the game, the Pences revealed that they’d had quite enough.

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Pence’s son, Michael, is a Marine, and the vice president said he believed that kneeling during the national anthem “disrespects our soldiers.”

“I left today’s Colts game because President Trump and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem,” Pence said in a statement. “At a time when so many Americans are inspiring our nation with their courage, resolve, and resilience, now, more than ever, we should rally around our Flag and everything that unites us.”

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“While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don’t think it’s too much to ask NFL players to respect the Flag and our National Anthem,” Pence added. “I stand with President Trump, I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem.”

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The vice president also tweeted out a picture, saying, “We were proud to stand — with all our @Colts — for our soldiers, our flag, and our National Anthem.”

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Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is now unsigned by any National Football League team, initiated the national anthem protest during the 2016 season when he chose to bring attention to racial injustice and police shootings of black men by kneeling. Although several other players followed in Kaepernick’s footsteps by kneeling during the national anthem, that form of protesting didn’t garner much support from NFL players and officials until President Donald Trump reignited the issue.

During a rally in Alabama on September 22, Trump touched on the issue, saying, “When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they are playing our great national anthem — the only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if it’s one player, leave the stadium.”

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b**ch off the field right now. He is fired,'” Trump added.

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In retaliation against a president many of them have publicly disowned, scores of NFL players joined in the national anthem protests by kneeling in subsequent games, while others chose to protest by standing with their arms locked or refusing to come out on the field at all while the anthem was played.

Although many liberals lauded the NFL players for defying Trump and politicizing the national anthem, the sport’s loyal fan base hasn’t offered such resounding levels of support, as ratings plummeted. A recent Winston Group poll found that the NFL’s overall favorability fell from 57 percent to 44 percent in the span of one month as the protests continued with renewed force. In addition, football suffered the highest unfavorable rating of any major sport, polled at 40 percent.

In addition, a recent poll released by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that approximately six in 10 Americans agree “that refusing to stand for the anthem is disrespectful to the military” and that such a form of protesting is “disrespectful to the country’s values and the American flag.

Trump himself took to Twitter to praise his vice president for walking out of the game, saying, “I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen.”

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(photo credit, homepage image: Mike Pence, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)