Editor's note: Esera Tuaolo created a stir when he
came out as gay in 2002 after retiring from a nine-year
career in the NFL. In this except from his new book, the
story picks up in 1997 when Tuaolo leaves the Minnesota
Vikings to join the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tuaolo was still
in the closet, but in Minnesota he met his partner,
Mitchell, (with whom he is now raising two children).
Jacksonville is the land of Holy Rollers. I have never been
anywhere else like that, where religion has taken over the
entire city. It extended to the football team. The Jaguars
were known as a Christian team. About half of the players
were involved in some way with an organization known as
Champions for Christ. I had seen Christian groups on other
teams, but nothing like this. The CFC members seemed to
accept only the guys who attended their weekly bible study.
I was my usual Mr. Aloha, always happy-go-lucky in the
locker room and able to get along with everyone. But I could
feel the tension between the CFC guys and the rest of the
players. It was as though you had to choose between two
cliques that divided the team.
A
lot of the team’s stars belonged to CFC, including Mark
Brunell, the quarterback who had upset John Elway and the
Denver Broncos in the AFC Central Division playoffs the
previous season, and Tony Boselli, an offensive lineman and
the first player the franchise drafted. They were the two
biggest stars on the team. They really pressured guys,
especially the younger players. An older player might start
preaching to a younger guy in the locker room that he needed
to change his ways because the end was near. You could feel
the threat of rejection. Don Davey told me the star players
and other CFC members had shunned him because he hadn’t
accepted their invitation. It felt like if you didn’t go to
their bible study, you weren’t part of the team.
The Holy Rollers carried the attitude, Either you’re with
us or you’re against us. That took me back to the
Pentecostal days of my childhood when the pastor preached,
“If your friends don’t go to church, you should de-friend
them and find some Christian friends.”
When I arrived in Jacksonville, they thought that I would
automatically gravitate toward Champions for Christ because
I was a Christian. They had seen me kneel in the center of
the field with other players after games. I always went to
chapel on game days with the Vikings and Packers. But CFC’s
militant approach rubbed me the wrong way.
In a way, CFC seemed like a cult to me. Any religion that
excludes a certain group is a cult. True religion accepts
everyone as they are. That’s my understanding of God’s love.
I also don’t think you should pressure someone into faith. I
think we should teach people about our faith by the way we
live. Our job as Christians is not to convert; our job is to
introduce the idea that Jesus Christ can help someone in his
life. I leave it to the Holy Spirit to convert and to the
individual to feel the conviction in his heart. When you try
to push religion on others, it tears a team apart. I could
see that in the Jaguars’ locker room.
My hunch that something wasn’t quite right with Champions
for Christ later proved correct. When running back Curtis
Enis, the Chicago Bears’ top draft pick in 1998, fired his
agent after attending CFC bible studies and hired a friend
of CFC president Greg Ball, the media started questioning
the group’s practices. Reports speculated that CFC, which
endorses the biblical practice of tithing, preyed upon the
NFL’s high-paid players. Brunell, who made more than $6
million a year, and Boselli, who made more than $2 million
annually, both admitted that they gave 10 percent of their
income to CFC. The NFL, which had acted in the past to
protect players against scams, launched its own
investigation. Much of the talk focused on the Jaguars. This
all happened after I had left the team.
While
with the Jaguars, I felt the pressure to join Champions for
Christ. Not long after I had been in Jacksonville, a
teammate and CFC member asked me if I believed in God. I
said yes. Then he asked me if I had accepted Jesus Christ as
my personal savior. I again said yes. He invited me to the
bible study. I balked.
An experience at my church in Minneapolis made me cautious.
"The Christian Way"
I had attended services regularly at Speak the Word since
1992, when I had come to play with Minnesota. In all of
those times, I hadn’t heard a word spoken about
homosexuality.
The week after my first date with Mitchell, I went to the
Sunday morning service at Speak the Word on my own. The
topic of the sermon was homosexuality. I had admired the
pastor. He had preached about love and discipline, topics
that spoke to me and bolstered my faith; but that Sunday he
spoke about homosexuality as a sinful choice, as though
someone could choose his or her sexual orientation.
I felt like Fred Flintstone, the way he shrinks when someone
yells at him. The more the pastor railed against
homosexuality, the smaller I felt in the big church, as
though everyone was pushed away from me.
The pastor proclaimed that he was going to raise his
children to be straight. He said the way to do that was to
raise them “the Christian way.” That meant he would be
involved in their lives and teach them to be great children
of God. I had been raised the Christian way, with the bible,
and I was gay. Yet the pastor thought he could dictate his
children’s sexual orientation.
I couldn’t believe these words coming out of his mouth. This
church was a place where I had felt at home. I had given
money to support its ministry. Yet the pastor was talking
about me as someone who was not one of God’s children.
I didn’t want to listen to any more of this negative talk.
His message said nothing about love. Stop this talk,
I was saying to him in my mind. Please stop.
Then something surprising happened. As I listened, a peace
came over me. I had the revelation, He’s not telling the
truth.
I started crying. The people around me consoled me, saying,
“The Spirit has touched you.”
Yeah, He did,
I thought, but not like you think. The Spirit said,
“I do love you.” He told me the truth. God opened my eyes as
to what kind of church that was. I wanted a church that
preached God’s love, a church that made me—and everyone—feel
like part of the family.
That was the last day I set foot in Speak the Word.
Needless to say, I had reservations about attending the
Champions for Christ bible study. One day, I saw a CFC flier
in the locker room that listed Darryl Flowers as the guest
speaker. I knew Darryl from Oregon State, where he had been
a star basketball player along with future NBA point guard
Gary Payton. Darryl had later become our football team’s
chaplain. I had liked Darryl. I figured I could please my
CFC teammates and catch up with Darryl by attending that
week’s bible study.
I had attended other teams’ bible studies, where a handful
of guys sat in a circle and talked about scripture. This one
wasn’t like that. It was held in the conference room of an
airport hotel. There must have been a hundred people there:
my teammates with their wives and their friends from
church.
Beforehand, I greeted Darryl. We hugged. He seemed happy to
see me.
The bible study started like many others. We introduced
ourselves and said some prayers. Then Darryl started to
speak. I expected his message to be like those I had heard
in the past. I expected him to talk about drawing
inspiration from the Good Book, or about finding our
strength in God. I hadn’t expected him to speak against
homosexuality as an abomination. He sounded like the
preacher at the church I attended as a child, saying that
such sinners would spend eternity in the lake of fire.
"I'm Not Going to Hell"
The anger started to rise within me. I was fed up with this
kind of misinformed talk. [My brother] Tua [who died of
AIDS] came to mind. I had not let myself think of him since
his funeral. I missed him too much. I had tried to block out
the pain. That night with Darryl speaking, I couldn’t help
but think of Tua and what a wonderful, kind person he was. I
thought of the way he had helped others and the way he
treated my mother so well. A person like that could not end
up in Hell, could they?
I thought about Mitchell. I had finally met a wonderful man,
who I thought was the answer to my prayers, yet this kind of
talk forced us to live a secret life. I wanted to stand up
and shout, “I’m not going to Hell!” Instead, I stewed in my
seat, torn between what I heard and what I lived.
After Darryl’s sermon, we broke into small discussion
groups. Darryl was in my group. I said to him, “I had a gay
brother who died of AIDS.” The other guys in my group leaned
back with worried expressions on their faces, like my
brother had contaminated me.
“You’re telling me that if Hitler in his last breath asked
God for forgiveness, that he would be forgiven,” I
continued, “but my brother, who was gay, would not be
forgiven?”
“Yes,” Darryl said. “Murder is different from abomination.
Murder is a sin that can be forgiven. Homosexuality can’t be
forgiven because it is an abomination.”
“That does not sit right with me,” I said to Darryl. “If you
knew my brother Tua and how many people he helped, you would
know like I do that he has a place in heaven.”
I stood up to leave. “I can’t accept that.”
“That’s what the word of God says.” Darryl quoted Leviticus
18: 22, “You will not have intercourse with a man as you
would with a woman. This is a hateful thing.” (New Jerusalem
Bible)
“If you’re going to follow Leviticus, then every NFL player
should be put to death for working on the Sabbath and
touching pigskin,” I shot back. (In addition to the passage
Darryl quoted, the book of Leviticus also mandates resting
on the Sabbath and not contacting pigs, which are considered
unclean. What’s more, Exodus 35: 2 states, “Work must be
done for six days, but the seventh must be a holy day for
you, a day of complete rest, in honor of Yahweh. Anyone who
does any work on that day will be put to death.” New
Jerusalem Bible)
They looked at me like I was crazy. I walked out.
Lake of Fire
I drove back to the hotel irate. When the Vikings played
[an] exhibition game in Berlin, I had visited a
concentration camp near the city. I had seen Hitler’s legacy
of horror. He was going to be forgiven, but not my brother?
Why did Tua need to be forgiven in the first place?
Back in my drab room, I started to drink tequila. The more I
thought about what had happened and the more I drank, the
more upset I became.
What if Darryl and all of the guys there — my teammates and
the star players — were right? Maybe Tua wasn’t in heaven.
Maybe I was headed to the lake of fire. That’s what pastors
had been telling me about homosexuality since I was a child.
My heart didn’t believe it, but my head was filled with
their preaching. I was confused about what I truly
believed.
I had spoken up about Tua, but I hadn’t had the guts to tell
the other guys about me. Once again, I was a coward. Why
must I always deny who I was? How long would I have to feel
ashamed of myself?
All of my confusion and conflict came out in a rage. I drove
my fist through the wall.
I wanted to kill myself. I felt the despair and defeat that
I had known so many times in Minnesota. Once again, I was
alone and confused and wanted to die. If I had had a gun
that night, I would have used it.
I called Mitchell. Instead of letting him comfort me, I
blamed him for the miserable way I felt. I told him that I
could not be happy with him, that I didn’t want to see him
again. In my confusion and despair, I rambled on about being
a sinner and not deserving him in my life. In the next
breath, I begged him not to leave. Eventually, I hung up on
him.
He called back. I hung up.
I immediately called him to tell him why I had hung up on
him. He wasn’t sympathetic enough. He couldn’t understand. I
hung up again.
This went on for three or four hours.
Mitchell kept calling and talking until he got through to
me. I think he realized how serious this was, that I really
was suicidal, that he could lose me. He didn’t panic. He was
able to look past all of the rotten things I said about him.
He managed to calm me down. His persistence and love kept me
alive.
He told me to sleep before making a decision about our
relationship. Finally, exhausted, I surrendered to sleep at
about 2:00 a.m.
The next morning, I woke up drained. I was grateful to have
football practice. It gave me somewhere to go.
"Jesus Brings Love"
Some of the players who had not been in my small discussion
group had not seen me leave. One of those guys approached me
in the locker room and asked, “What did you think of the
bible study?”
“I consider myself a Christian,” I said. “But you guys are
stuck in the Old Testament practice of condemning certain
groups. In the New Testament, Jesus brings love,
forgiveness, and compassion to everyone. To live like Christ
is not to cast out another group. That’s what happened at
the bible study.”
We had a long conversation.
The New Testament was the new revelation; it gave us a new
understanding of God through the person of Jesus Christ. I’m
not saying we should throw out the Old Testament. I’m saying
we should read it in context of the New Testament. To stick
with some of the teachings in the Old Testament can cause
people to live in the past.
I think many of the Old Testament’s comments on
homosexuality are teachings from the past that Jesus did not
endorse. I heard Robin Williams deliver a great line: “If
homosexuality is an abomination, why didn’t it make the top
ten list of sins?”
Jesus would not dismiss me from his presence. He saw the
beauty in everyone. Look who Jesus hung out with: tax
collectors and prostitutes. He never discriminated against
anyone. His message was to treat others with respect, not to
pass judgment on Earth.
Jesus loved everyone. He died on the cross for everyone —
not just for straight people, but for all people.
Some Christians try to exclude some groups from the blood of
Christ, but Jesus didn’t. No, he died for all of us. During
tough times, I held onto that.
The Bible says in Leviticus 18: 22 that it’s unnatural for a
man to lie with a man. God created me—you, all people—in his
image. I am not a mistake. God doesn’t make mistakes. My own
belief is that if God doesn’t make mistakes and God made me
gay — I was born gay — it would be unnatural for me to lie
with a woman. Since God created me gay—with a desire to be
intimate with men — it is natural for me to lie with a man.
It bothers me that people are selective in their scripture
readings. They only pick the passages they want to use for
their own purposes. If you’re going to read one passage,
you’ve got to read them all. If you’re going to read
Leviticus 18: 22, you’ve got to read the whole book, which
says, among other things, that “Whenever a woman has a
discharge and the discharge from her body is of blood, she
will remain in a state of menstrual pollution for seven
days. Anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.”
(Leviticus 15: 19–20, New Jerusalem Bible) Are you going to
cast out your wife when she has her period? We have to
consider the context and use common sense.
"I Cannot Imagine God Would Hate Anyone"
Some people blame gay men for the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, but there were also men raping women and other
sins taking place there. God destroyed the people in those
cities for doing evil. A lot of people are stuck on men
raping the angels, but the place was long gone before the
angels arrived.Critics view homosexuals as a group. If a man
goes on a shooting binge, you don’t read in the paper that a
heterosexual man went on a shooting binge. But if a
homosexual man molests a child, you read that a “gay man”
molested a child. There are bad homosexuals just like there
are bad heterosexuals. Please don’t judge us as a group.
I don’t understand how religious people can read the Bible
and know that there’s only one judge, yet take the
responsibility for being that judge. They condemn all
homosexuals simply because of the way we are created. I see
a little lesbian girl or gay boy listening and becoming
afraid like I was, believing there is something wrong with
them. These people tell these gay kids that there is no
place in this world or God’s kingdom for them. It breaks my
heart to hear that. I cannot imagine that God would hate
anyone. Remember, Jesus shed his blood for all of
us.
I want the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people
who have turned their back on God to return to their faith.
Ignore the misinformed people; don’t ignore God. When I
speak at colleges, I want to make sure that those who hear
me know God loves them. I speak out of my Christian faith,
but I tell them, “Whether you are a Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, or
whatever, hold onto your faith. Religion is supposed to
bring comfort and joy to your life. It’s not supposed to
scare the Hell out of you.”
Religion involves a personal relationship between you and
God. People can give you advice, criticize you, say what
they want, but in the end, when you stand before God on
Judgment Day, you’ll stand alone. We each need to decide for
ourselves what we believe and live out that faith.
People ask me, “How can you believe in God after all of the
negative things you’ve heard in church and bible studies
about homosexuality?” I know those negative things others
have said don’t come from God. I still believe because God
has always been there for me. If it weren’t for God, I would
be six feet under. My faith has made me explore the Bible
even more. I found out God loves me the way He created me.
I’ve held onto that love. That’s all you need.I don’t want
to come across as holier than thou. I’m not perfect; no one
is. I’ve got skeletons in my closet. We all have our
weaknesses. We all fall short of God’s glory because we’re
all human. I’m not an expert, and I don’t claim to be a
scholar, but I know the Bible and what I believe. I simply
want to spread the word about God’s true love the way the
book of Wisdom describes it: “Yes, you love everything that
exists, and nothing that you have made disgusts you, since,
if you had hated something, you would not have made it.”
(Wisdom 11:24, New Jerusalem Bible)
These thoughts were not as clear in my mind the day after I
attended the CFC bible study. I was feeling wiped out and
adrift. After practice, I went over to [teammate] Don
Davey’s house. Mitchell wasn’t there to comfort me in
person, but Don and his wife were. I told them about the
bible study and how I couldn’t accept that my brother was an
abomination. They were very supportive and sympathetic.
I talked to Mitchell again on the phone. He told me he would
stay in the relationship if I would. I wouldn’t have blamed
him if he had called it quits after the way I had treated
him. I think he believed that deep down I was a good man.
Even when I treated him horribly, he believed that good man
would again show himself.
I tell people that Mitchell is the strongest man I know. I
put him through a lot of crap, but he stayed with me. That
night could have destroyed us, but instead, we took an
important step forward.
Copyright 2006,
Source
Books. Reprinted with permission
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