So another guy in the sports world, this time a straight one, has stepped forward as a non-homophobic role model. Former Dallas Cowboy and Hall of Fame Receiver Michael Irvin will appear on the cover of Out.
I have to say, I am very surprised by this one. I've always thought Michael Irvin was, well, a dick, and I fully expected him to be full of anti-gay machismo, especially given his well documented womanizing. I was flat wrong on that one. Turns out Irvin's brother is gay:
It was a Friday evening in Fort Lauderdale, warm and clear, like so many that 12-year-old Michael Irvin had experienced growing up in southern Florida. He was riding in a car with his father, Walter, a roofer by trade who spent what little spare time he had operating as the local Primitive Baptist minister. The two were heading home after an errand that was a regular payday ritual: Walter would drive into town to buy cigars and then drop off money with Michael’s grandmother to help with her bills. It was the late 1970s, a time of strife in America, and young Michael had already seen a lot in his low-income neighborhood. But nothing prepared him for what happened next.
As Walter drove up Northwest 27th Avenue, about to turn onto 16th Street, his son noticed a man who looked just like his older brother, Vaughn, walking away from their house toward “all the craziness in the ’hood,” Irvin remembers. It couldn’t be Vaughn: “This man was wearing women’s clothes.” But it was. “My brother had a very distinctive walk,” he says.
Irvin couldn’t believe his eyes. He turned to his father. “My dad looked back at me and said, ‘Yes, that’s your brother. And you love your brother.’ ”
In the end it was his love for his brother, as well as years of soul searching that made him realize he can't be silent about homophobia:
Irvin wants to eradicate homophobia in every corner of American society. He points to churches that have skewed the word of God to persecute those who don’t share their dogma; he shakes his head at the black culture he says has gone adrift in a sea of homophobia; and he said it’s time to end the second class–citizen status of gays in the eyes of the law.
“I don’t see how any African-American with any inkling of history can say that you don’t have the right to live your life how you want to live your life. No one should be telling you who you should love, no one should be telling you who you should be spending the rest of your life with. When we start talking about equality and everybody being treated equally, I don’t want to know an African-American who will say everybody doesn’t deserve equality.”
Oh, and did I mention he appears shirtless?
Hmm. Wait, what was I saying? Sorry, got distracted. :P