The argument over the Super Bowl halftime performance isn’t really about the music: It is about who people consider American, and who they think isn’t.

When Turning Point USA started promoting their “All-American” halftime show, it caused criticism quickly to follow the Puerto Rican artist performing at the actual Super Bowl. This reaction felt less like patriotism and more like exclusion.

I’ll be honest: I do love some country music. I liked a few of the artists that Turning Point USA was showcasing. But, when it came down to watching the halftime show, I watched Bad Bunny. Did I understand every word that was being sung? Nope — but that didn’t matter at all.

I was up dancing, moving like I knew every lyric, because music doesn’t need subtitles. Music has the ability to speak its own language; that’s the beauty of it. You are able to feel it before you understand it; you are able to move to it before you translate it.

Selective Outrage
After Bad Bunny’s performance, critics were quick to call it inappropriate, talking about the suggestive lyrics and dancing. The thing is, their outrage feels selective at best.

This is not the first time, and definitely won’t be the last, that the Super Bowl halftime show had sexual themes. When Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performed, there was provocative dancing across the stage. Lopez was quite literally dancing on a stripper pole. Rhianna’s halftime performance included lyrics about strip clubs, sex, and money, along with some more suggestive movements that were visible to the nation’s audience. Many other performers before them did the exact same.

After those, there was criticism—but not to this severity of moral panic.
So, the question I have is: why now?
If everyone’s concern is truly about protecting values, then those values should be consistent. However, they weren’t. The performance only became ‘unacceptable’ when the artist was a Spanish-speaking Latino man.

Scripture or a Weapon
What confused me the most when it came to this outrage was that the majority of the people hating were Christians.

While God might not have approved of every lyric or dance move ever performed on a halftime stage, he also would not approve of the hatred, mockery, and demeaning of someone made in his image. You cannot condemn a person and quote scripture in the same breath. Those two things do not go together.

Christianity teaches that Jesus loved EVERYONE. Anyone can repent. Everyone belongs. The Bible talks about how God’s love transcends nationality, language, and social status:
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, NIV)

Yet the same voices that are preaching about salvation and acceptance recoil at a song sung in Spanish on a football field.

Some of these people are also speaking about how they were offended by the past actions Bad Bunny has made. But the Bible is full of people who made serious mistakes, yet were still forgiven and loved by God. Your grace is supposed to be bigger than your discomfort.

Yes, the Bible does speak about judgment, but it also speaks about how you should judge righteously:
“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly” (John 7:24, NIV)

Righteous judgment isn’t selective. It doesn’t brush off the same behavior from others just to single out one person because you don’t agree with the circumstances.

Spanish Is Not Foreign Here

Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a part of the United States, thus making him an American citizen.

Spanish is not foreign here. It is a language that is spoken by more than 40 million people in this country.

What I saw during this halftime performance wasn’t something to fear or be angry about. I saw family. I saw a culture being represented. I saw pride. I saw flags from across North, Central, and South America sharing the same space.

Let’s Be Honest
It was 15 minutes. Fifteen.

There was this much outrage about someone signing in Spanish for 15 minutes at a football game.

People were quick to judge and condemn this man, but are still praising politicians and public figures who, with facts and evidence, have been exposed for abusing their power, lying, and far worse. But this where the line is drawn? This is where the outrage is?

Let’s not pretend this is about not understanding the language. Plenty of these people spewing hate are also the same people who will go sit in a Mexican restaurant for over an hour, eating their chips and salsa while listening to Spanish music being played the entire time, perfectly fine with not knowing a single word that is being sung.

But when that same language is on a big stage, cast on a big screen, being celebrated in front of millions of viewers, now it’s offensive. Now it doesn’t belong.

The Super Bowl has featured a handful of performers who were not American citizens, and surprisingly, no one needed their own halftime show then. Now that the music was in Spanish, we have a problem.

The America I Want My Daughter to See
If my daughter had been watching, I would want her to be proud of where she comes from, not embarrassed.

Proud that her language belongs here. Proud that her culture is being represented on one of the biggest stages in the country. Proud that her success in this world is not limited to those who speak, look, or dance a certain way.

I would want her to know that speaking Spanish doesn’t make her any less American. That she shouldn’t have to hide parts of herself to belong in a country that prides itself on freedom.

You do not have to understand every word to feel joy. You don’t have to speak a certain language to dance. And you definitely do not have to look or sound the same to share the same country.

This performance could remind us of that, if we let it.

Bad Bunny said it best with a message etched on a football at the end of his performance: “Together We Are America.”