In the recent issue of Out Magazine Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irving talks gay marriage, equality and coming to terms with his gay brother...
Micheal Irvin on how he found out his older brother was gay,
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.’ ”
Walter Irvin’s message was simple: Michael was supposed to love his brother unconditionally, no matter what he looked like or who he was.
Michael Irvin on 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. 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.”
Read the entire interview here
