> He had some pretty awful views that he was pretty loud about, especially later in life. He also cheated on his wife at one point.

In 1961, in his early 20s. You get ~80 years on this planet to make mistakes and have views that some other people will dislike. If these are the worst things we can accuse him of, while acknowledging all his charitable work, I'd say he fared OK compared to many other role models we have.

The Obama Birtherism nonsense was certainly not in this dude's 20s

Apparently much more recently too:

https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/01/13/chuck-norris-homophob...

Turns out he was a MAGA Christian homophobe. That’s … disappointing. But I guess I was naive to expect something different.