Michael Irvin is a hard person not to like. If you have spent any time around him you understand while he has had his issues in the past people are willing to run through walls for him.
Irvin just revealed for the first time to Out Magazine that he had a gay sibling and he explains how that he affected his life. He also gives strong takes on gay rights and how he would treat an athlete if they were to come out of the closet.
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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
The part about African-Americans I have been saying for years. You can’t equate the struggles of African-Americans to the struggle of gays, but there are some distinct similarities.
Even to this day racist people use the Bible to try to rationalize how black people shouldn’t be treated equal. One of the main reasons blacks didn’t have rights for many years was because of the Bible. People know like to use the Bible as a way to limit the privileges gay people have.
The Bible is a book with a lot of open interpretations that was written centuries ago, it can be used in many forms including negative and divisive ones.
Black people always have to look over the shoulder at all times, you never feel 100% comfortable because of all the stereotyping and prejudice that is going on.
Gay people have a lot of those same issues, so it would be hypocritical of me to ever say that a Gay person shouldn’t have the right to do whatever the want.
You don’t have to agree with something to respect it.
I don’t agree with Casey Anthony getting off for murdering her kid, but I respect the justice system even in its flawed state.
Irvin makes great points and if more African-Americans especially the younger ones actually studied our history they wouldn’t be so quick to judge.