Ayanbadejo: Gay rights 'the hardest fight I've ever had to face'

Chris Strauss, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo at EA's LGBT Full Spectrum Event (Photo: Amy Sussman, Invision for EA)

As one of the most outspoken professional athletes on the topic of gay rights awareness, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo was forced to strike a delicate balance during the week leading up to Super Bowl XLVII.

Given the forum and media interest in his views on the subject, especially after San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver's anti-gay comments made headlines, Ayanbadejo didn't want his advocacy to overshadow his team's goal of winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

"With this such a huge platform and being such a big game, I have to narrow my scopes and have real fine vision and know the importance of why I am here and I'm here because of the Super Bowl," Ayanbadejo said at the time."Of course, if I can be a voice for equality, especially after this game, then I welcome everybody to sit down and get together after the game and we'll do a lot more for equality than just talking about it now at a sporting event."

Ayanbadejo is certainly doing a giant deal more now.

Appearing as a featured panelist at EA's LGBT Full Spectrum Event in New York City Tuesday morning, the 36-year-old reiterated his commitment to the fight for equality at a summit dedicated to creating an inclusive environment for gay and lesbians as both players and creators of video games.

"[LGBT equality] is the hardest fight I've ever had to face in my life and I've seen my fair share of adversity growing up in the projects, growing up on welfare, a lot of gang violence," he told the audience. "Basically having nothing then coming full circle to where I am today. I've seen a lot of adversity but this is definitely the hardest fight because a lot of people don't want to change."

During Ayanbadejo's nearly 40-minute session, which featured several cameo appearances by his 23-month-old son Amadeus, the linebacker reflected on how his teammates refer to him as "the ambassador," the emails he's received from grateful mothers and how having an upcoming Madden cover athlete record a pro LGBT message as part of the game would be "really awesome."

He even took the time to jokingly chastise some of the EA execs in the crowd for his poor ratings in the game.

"Who does that game? I need to punch someone," Ayanbadejo said. "I've been to three Pro Bowls. I'm a decent athlete. If you look at my stats you know they tell you what my speed is in the 40 and how many times I can bench 225 pounds. Obviously I can play football. I'm 36, I've been doing it since I was 14. That's 22 years, longer than the guy's been making the game. Then they give me this crummy score on Madden. I guess I have a bunch of intangibles. But I'm around though. Based on Madden's scores, I never would've made it."

Ayanbadejo sat down for a Q&A with USA TODAY Sports following the panel to discuss his future advocacy efforts and where he sees his career taking him next.

You mentioned during the panel that you felt like some of the public stances you've taken could have weakened your NFL career. Specifically how?

With me comes a lot of advocacy. Say the Ravens release me for whatever reasons this year and I want to play and go to another team. Now they're getting Brendon Ayanbadejo the football player, but they're also getting all the things I stand up for as well. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. The organization backed me up and said it's ok that you believe in marriage equality but for me to speak as loud as I did and to advocate for it as much as I did, when we started doing media requests the Ravens couldn't take that stuff on because it's not sports related. They would hand all that stuff to my personal PR staff.

Football is primarily about football. They want to touch education and kids and fundraising with Christmas type events. They don't want to be political but at the same time they want to help as many people as they can in a certain demographic. There are certain things they don't want to go outside of.

Specifically in your own locker room you had Matt Birk, an equally respected veteran with very different views on the subject. That likely would have put team officials in a tough spot having to arrange interviews on the subject for both of you.

Some people tried to sit Matt and I down [for a debate] but they had to do it outside of the Ravens. We have two completely different points of views but I think at the end of the day I'm on the right side of history and equality. It is what it is. It's one of these things that the Ravens didn't really want to touch but at the same time it's these same types of conversations that made us so tight as a team. Just like a family, when things come up in your family no matter what they are, you need to talk about them and address them.

Have you had a chance to speak with Chris Culliver since he made his infamous comments at Super Bowl media day?

No, I saw that he was doing something with the LGBT community this week. I just gave him some encouraging words and sent him a message to let him know if he ever needs me that I'd be there to support him. We'll make everything right if he wants to make it right and I'll be there to support him in doing that. He didn't take me up on the offer.

When you look at a guy like Culliver, who is young and was put on the spot, do you think that was more based out of ignorance than hateful speech?

I think it's more ignorance based. When it comes down to it whether it's Matt Birk or Chris Culliver, they don't necessarily hate anybody but the level of acceptance still isn't there. I think just through conversation we can change that. I think if you asked 100 LGBT people if they were born that way they'd say yes. People say that science doesn't back it up but you're talking to 100 people and they're telling you that's how they are. It's one of those things where we need to go out there and educate people so they're more aware of what's going on, regardless of what science says or it doesn't say.

What do you say to someone who disagrees with your stance from a religious or moral background? You said earlier today that you tried to take religion out of the gay marriage discussion with certain teammates and make it about equal rights afforded by the law.

The main thing that I try to get them to see is that the law is one thing. Even though you don't accept it religiously, do you have the wherewithal or integrity enough to let people have those options to be free? Would you legislate for somebody even though you don't believe in it and you wouldn't do it yourself? Do you have enough integrity to see that the law has to protect everybody? Obviously with Matt Birk he didn't accept it on any level. But then again, he doesn't hate anybody either. He knows people that are part of the community and he would stick up for them if someone what getting bullied per se, but legislatively he's not going to support him. That's probably the hardest one to fight versus the ignorance.

Along with several professors, you and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe recently filed a brief with the Supreme Court urging them to reject California's ban on same-sex marriage. Why did you take that step?

Our thinking in this amicus brief is that I'm known to support LGBT rights and Chris Kluwe just as well, so we teamed up with a couple professors and we had an attorney write the brief. We presented it to the SCOTUS. I think it went pretty well. I had no idea how big of an impact it was going to be.

Now we're trying to get more high-profile people to sign on to our brief, which has to be submitted by March 24. We have Dominique Foxworth, the NFLPA president, UFC fighter Rashad Evans and Patrick Nero, the athletic director at George Washington University, where I'm currently getting my MBA.

One of the long-term goals you discussed today is someday working as an athletic director. In what capacity?

Ideally, I'd like to be the UCLA athletic director. I'd probably have to climb the ropes so wherever that takes me that's what avenue I'm looking at.

What about your more short-term advocacy goals?

Once I get away from football, one idea is to go around and talk to high school kids about LGBT rights. I think that would be one platform for me to start and be comfortable and start touring. Everything is so early right now.

The idea to start out would be to go talk at 30 schools and do it in two weeks and knock it out in one tour. We're just putting ideas together now. We'll need to come up with a full plan and funding but it's pretty brand new.

Are there other athletes that have really inspired you in activist roles?

Being a UCLA alum, we look to Jackie Robinson and Arthur Ashe. There's Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. We've had a lot of people coming out of UCLA. That's what they teach you to lure you in there. You're so much more than an athlete. You can impact the world.