In a letter to Human Rights Campaign (HRC) executive director Elizabeth Birch, Green Bay Packers president and CEO Robert E. Harlan apologized Tuesday for the team's star football player, Reggie White, an anti-gay activist. Reggie White's employer cited "inappropriate" use of the team's uniform in an ad campaign orchestrated by Right Wing political lobbying groups.

The intensely homophobic White began his anti-gay activist's career in a speech he delivered March 25 to the Wisconsin Assembly. An ordained minister, White called homosexuality a sin and asserted that it was a chosen "alternative lifestyle." He equated gay people to "liars, cheaters, [those who are] malicious and back stabbers."

These assertions were repeated by White several weeks later on ABC-TV's "20/20," and on April 30, he appeared with anti-gay activists Alveda Celeste King and singers Angie and Debbie Winans at a rally against a non-discrimination ordinance in Ypsilanti, Mich.

White was initially reprimanded by the NFL and Green Bay Packers for appearing in uniform in a $63,000 anti-gay ad sponsored by political right wing organizations and placed in the newspaper USA Today.

"The use of the Packers uniform in this case -- as Greg Aiello, the National Football League's vice president of public relations acknowledged in a recent public statement – "was not approved and was an inappropriate use of the uniform. And we obviously concur in that view. As an organization, we regret the misuse of our uniform in the advertisement."

Please accept our apology," said Harlan in his letter. By appearing in his Green Bay Packer uniform in another full page anti-gay ad, White has again violated NFL rules which prohibit players from using official league property, such as a uniform, to push a personal political agenda. With Tuesday's ad, Reggie White and his Right Wing political sponsors broke their promise to the NFL and Green Bay Packers that White would no longer appear in uniform in future ads.

In response to White's first misuse of the NFL logo, Elizabeth Birch had penned a letter to Green Bay Packer President and CEO Robert E. Harlan asking him to clarify the team's stance on this issue. Harlan's Tuesday letter was written in response to Ms. Birch's query.

"Reggie White has the right to state his beliefs in these ads or any other forum. No one has questioned his right, certainly not the Human Rights Campaign. However, this is America and we also have the right to exercise free speech and to question the accuracy and political motives behind this ad campaign," said HRC communications director and senior strategist David M. Smith.