"I'm just going to say I'm not gay. I really, really like women" (QB Anton Rogers, answering a question he shouldn't have had to)

Oh wait, this is the wrong Anton Rogers. This isn't the Green Bay Packers QB, the NFL's 2011 MVP, it's the charming British actor Anton Rodgers who played the father in the father-and-son-lawyers Britcom May to December. (In his younger years, a less charming Anton was one of the early No. 2's on The Prisoner.)

"I'm just going to say I'm not gay. I really, really like women. That's all I can really say about that."

-- Packers QB Anton Rogers, in his regular weekly
appearance on Wisconsin ESPN Radio station 540 AM

by Ken

Don't you wish Anton had stuck to his guns when he said, "I'm just going to say I'm not gay." I guess he had to say something, because he wouldn't have been allowed not to. But I expect that even as he said it, he knew it wasn't enough, and so out come that unfortunate "I really, really like women." Um, AR, you do realize that lots of gay men "really, really like women," don't you? This isn't even an answer to that question -- you know, the one you shouldn't have to answer.

"There isn't a whole lot of separation from your public and private life," Anton also said, and this is unquestionably true. As we should all know by now, it's part of the price of celebrity, and ought to be kept in mind by all those who seek it -- and then when they get it, if they do, complain about not having any privacy. I feel bad for them. I really do. Their private lives shouldn't be any of my business, or yours, or yours. But this is the world we live in, and a good chunk of that celebrity cash dump you're sitting on is payment for public ownership of, well, you. It is, apparently, how we show our love, or our fascination, which turns out to be pretty much the same thing.

Assuming Anton's answer is truthful, it's a shame he was forced into making such an embarrassing statement. Actually, same deal if his answer isn't truthful, with the extra stipulation that it's additionally cruel that he was forced into fibbing. But I would understand -- and again, let me stress that I have neither information nor an opinion on the truth of the matter. He has a career to consider.

Someday, though, we will have a star NFL quarterback able to say that yes, he's gay, are there any more questions, like maybe about football? And indeed, "star NFL quarterback" is one of the categories I think of when I try to think what sort of pro-athlete-coming-out would really have an impact on hard-core sports fans -- one of the demographics that seems to me to have been more resistant to the radical shift in public attitudes toward homosexuality. I figure it would have to be someone from the elite of their world, one elected to the ranks of the elite supermales, and I don't know that there's anyone eliter than a star NFL quarterback.

As I said, in the case of gay men and women in the spotlight who have justified fears for their livelihood if they, um, really, really like people of their own gender (and again, I'm not saying that Anton Rogers is one of them), I understand -- but I also feel really bad. It can't be a good thing for your psyche to feel compelled to lie about who you are. The world has changed to an extent and with a speed I would never have imagined 20 years ago, or even 10 or 5. It's inevitable, I think, as more and more people who once thought they didn't know any "people like that" except of course for the obvious "queers" discover that in fact we're all around them, among their family, friends, and coworkers, and our sexual orientation has nothing to do with our goodness, badness, or in-between-ness.

Still, there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of hard-core homophobia. And a chunk of that ground sits in front of the TV on Sundays in the fall.

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