They aren't equivalent. And to conservatives, the second one is to be praised and the first one is to be damned.

One of them is professing a personal belief elevated into the national discourse by an individual at the end of his athletics career. The other is a sponsored advertisement by the ruling elite voiced through a paid shill, as a means of self-promotion. That's really the nut of it.

Butker sits on the board of a private home schooling program that directly profits from the reactionary turn against public education. He's filling the proper American role of getting that bag. He's giving these speeches and cultivating a social media following in order to pitch more of his Christian flavored self-help materials. He's got investors who stand to make a mint themselves, and so use their connections to boost his media presence. All for the aim of separating fools from their money.

Kaepernick originally filled that role as a QB, when he was quietly tossing a ball around for the entertainment of high dollar ticket holders. But as soon as he started taking a knee and yapping his yap, he cut into people's bottom lines. The NFL leadership didn't like their image as apolitical national past time infringed. The police and national military didn't like one of their major advertising and recruiting partners going off script. The sports news shows didn't like the possibility of losing advertisers.

The real equivalence is in the flow of that $$$