You went to college at Oregon State and you mention in your book that it was approximately 65% Greek when you attended.  You pledged Pi Kappa Alpha.  I’m curious if you heard from anyone in Pi Kappa Alpha after you came out?

    I heard from two guys and both were wonderful and supportive.  One had been in my pledge class.  Both apologized asking for forgiveness if they’d ever said anything negative or homophobic.  I did hear that someone wrote positively about me in Pi Kappa Alpha’s The Shield and Diamond, the fraternity’s quarterly magazine.  My book just came out on March 14th, so maybe I’ll hear from brothers in the coming months.

    How do you define “brotherhood”?

    In Pi Kappa Alpha, brotherhood involved tradition.  Our secret codes of tradition made it feel special.  It was about sticking by your brother no matter what.  If one of us did something, we all did it.

    You often refer to “the NFL fraternity.”  Why do you call the NFL a fraternity?

    I simply referred to it that way because, as a fraternity is exclusive to men, so is the NFL.  Both are definitely mens’ clubs.

    You wrote that you struggled to survive the combative, macho world dominated by a culture that despised who you really were.  I’m curious if campus fraternity life, where the code can also be hyper-masculine, equipped you for life in the NFL.

    No, fraternity life didn’t really prepare me for the NFL.  In our fraternity, being macho meant getting chicks.  I wasn’t interested in women so my brothers had no competition from me in that regard.  But now football, it’s about one-to-one combat.  It’s like being a gladiator and going to war.

    You said the NFL’s macho code meant that a gay player would be “outcast for life,” that the tight-knit devotion to the macho code superseded devotion to a teammate.  That doesn’t sound very fraternal to me.  Is it?

    It is except for sexuality.  A player could come back after being arrested for drugs or for beating his wife and players would welcome him back with open arms.  But that wasn’t the case for me.  My sexuality made me a problem.  Imagine if I was still playing and I dominated a player on the field.  He would become the center of all of the jokes from his team and, trust me, from the press as well.  Radio shows would be saying, “So-and-so was taken down by a faggot!”

    You also wrote a lot about fear in your memoir.  You stated, “I  had so much energy on my fear.”  Now that you’re on the other side of fear, now that you’re liberated, what do you hope to put your efforts toward and accomplish?

    Saving lives.  That’s it.  Pure and simple.  I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through.  I felt such despair and hopelessness.  I want my story to give hope.

    You mentioned that you were a cartoon junkie as a child and played superhero.  You mentioned throughout your book that imagination often kept you sane as a gay man.  Does imagination play a part in your life today?

    Oh!  Imagination is crucial!   I just know that the author of, say a book like Peter Pan, had to have had  problems like ours to come up with a place like Never Land where he could go and never get hurt.  Pretending is a way to make everything great.  Imagination still plays a great part in my life except now it is through the eyes of my children.  Our imaginative play is fun and safe.  Fortunately, I don’t have to go to a place of imagination anymore to be safe.  Now I just go home.

    You wrote, “music has the power to connect us with others and with ourselves.”  What are some of your favorite songs and why?

    I don’t really have favorites.  I just love whatever music touches me.  I grew up with great Mo Town artists like Aretha Franklin singing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”  I loved that song because respect is all I ever wanted in life.  I really love Kelly Clarkson’s “Some Kind of Wonderful” because it completely reminds me of my partner.  “Prayed for an angel to come in the night and shine some sweet light on me.  Found only strangers.  Then you came to me just when I’d given up, you gave me love.”

    Speaking of your partner, your book is also a love story.  You say that his persistence and love kept you alive.  And it’s a story about family.  What is it like being a dad?

    It’s amazing.  When gay people decide to have children, we give it such intense thought and planning.  Because of this, our children are so wanted and loved.

    You grew up in fundamentalist religion.  How had being immersed in religion helped you in your current work for equity and justice?

    I always encourage any radio or television show I’m on to bring on a religious fundamentalist.  People aren’t educated about being gay.  It comes as a surprise to them that I’m Christian and, thus, my faith manifests itself in a more loving form.  There is no condemnation, only love.  I know my Bible well.  I have come to realize that we are not sin, but are a labor of the love of God.  What most of us, as gay people, have learned in church just is not the truth.  I was born gay.  And we are all children of God.   Period.

    Do  you ever feel that  you have to come out as a gay an to the heterosexual world and then also come out as a spiritual man to the gay and lesbian world?

    That is so true.  Gay brothers and lesbian sisters never expect me to be Christian for some reason.  I read somewhere that something like 80% of GLBTQ people were raised in a church of some kind, but somewhere along the way they turn their backs on it.  I say to churches, “The book of Revelations says to ‘beware of false prophets’ and that is what you are doing if you shut your doors to GLBTQ people.  And I believe that God will shut His doors to you.”  And I say to GLBTQ people, “The Bible is a book of love and the gospel is a message of compassion.”

    There is only one aspect of your book that I disliked a great deal.

    Oh no!  What was it?

    I want to read you some direct quotes.  When writing about steroids on page 73, you say, “They may have looked like Tarzan, but they played like Jane.”  On another page (212) you write, “I introduced Mitchell to people as a friend.  He is not a girlie man, so he passed easily for a buddy.”  On page 239 you mention that “Cher and ‘macho’ fans aren’t often used in the same sentence.  And, last of all, in another section you write, “I’ve had to break stereotypes even in the gay community.  Some people expect me to be different now that I’m out, to talk in a higher voice or act like a woman.  That’s just not me.  I grew up in a straight way.  Even now that I’m out, I’m too straight for the gay community, but I’m too gay for the straight community.  Some friends feel they have to act like a girl once they’re out.  Their voice goes up an octave - from a bass to a soprano.  I never felt the need to be a Nellie” (page 274).

    These are incredibly misogynistic and sexist statements.  In all of these quotes, you spin the feminine as negative.  What does this mean to you as the father of a little girl, that the macho world sees feminine as negative?  And how will you confront sexism in the same way you’re confronting homophobia?

    Oh my gosh!  I am so sorry!  It just didn’t occur to me that this was a message in my book.  It stems from being in the macho world of football, I know.  I am so glad you are being direct with me about this.  And I promise to really work on it.  Could you send me the notes you made on where I said this so that I can really study it?  Do you have anything that I can read that will help me confront my own bias?

    I know just the right book.  It’s by bell hooks and it titled The Will to change:  Men, Masculinity and Love.  She addresses maleness and masculinity and confronts the realities of patriarchy.

    Rosie O’Donnell contacted you when you came out in 2002 and told you, “Now when somebody else comes out, you have a responsibility to reach out to them.”  Who have you reached out to?

    Of course, as I mentioned numerous times in the book, David Kopay’s book saved my life.  I’m convinced of that.  So he’s a good friend now.  And Billy Bean has reached out to me and supported me.  I haven’t  met Cheryl Swoop but she and I have the same publicist.  I asked him to tell her that I thought what she did was phenomenal and that if she needed anything at all, to please contact me.  Mostly, those I’ve helped are the lone teenage athlete who feels like they, too, are the only one going through this.  And that was definitely a goal of mine to be able to help and support people who are alone and afraid.  There just simply isn’t a reason to feel alone anymore.

    Your speaking engagements have to do with creating a world of tolerance.  How do you define “tolerance”?

    You know, we all start off as prisoners, afraid to tell people who we truly are.  When we come out, we feel free.  Tolerance is accepting people for who they are.  Tolerance is being able to live and give each other respect.

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