Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl
Former Dallas Cowboys great Michael Irvin appears shirtless on the cover of this month’s gay men’s magazine Out and discusses his passion for equality issues.
Irvin publicly acknowledges that his impetus for taking a stand comes from his relationship with his gay brother Vaughn, who died of stomach cancer in 2006. Irvin had not spoken publicly about his brother previously, according to the magazine.
In the article, Irvin describes how his brother’s sexual orientation contributed to his own issues.
He says that he found out his brother was gay sometime in the 1970s when he found him wearing women’s clothing. He was rattled by the experience and has since figured out that it contributed to his own womanizing behavior.
“And through it all we realized maybe some of the issues I’ve had with so many women, just bringing women around so everybody can see, maybe that’s the residual of the fear I had that if my brother is wearing ladies’ clothes, am I going to be doing that? Is it genetic?” Irvin said to Out. “I’m certainly not making excuses for my bad decisions. But I had to dive inside of me to find out why am I making these decisions, and that came up.”
Irvin says that his father, Walter, helped him learn a tolerant form of Christianity because the elder Irvin accepted his gay son.
Irvin now thinks the African-American community should support marriage equality.
“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,” he said, according to the magazine. “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.”
The Hall of Fame wide receiver believes that this work matters more than his football career.
“The last thing I want is to go to God and have him ask, ‘What did you do?’ And I talk about winning Super Bowls and national titles,” Irvin said, according to Out. “I didn’t do anything to make it a better world before I left? All I got is Super Bowls? That would be scary.”
Irvin would support any athlete who wants to come out.
“If anyone comes out in those top four major sports, I will absolutely support him. … When a guy steps up and says, ‘This is who I am,’ I guarantee you I’ll give him 100 percent support,” Irvin said.
He thinks the team that won three Super Bowls could have integrated an openly gay teammate as well as any team.
“We had a bunch of different characters on that team,” Irvin said. “Deoin [Sanders] and Emmitt [Smith]. I believe that team would have handled it well.”
