This gay Steelers fan won’t cheer for Aaron Rodgers because of Anthony Fauci

I’ve been a Pittsburgh Steelers fan for more than 50 years. I was 8 when I was awestruck by Franco Harris’s Immaculate Reception. I was 10 when they won Super Bowl IX.

I haven’t lived in Pittsburgh in four decades, but every Sunday during football season still revolves around the black and gold.

That’s why writing this hurts.

If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t apologize for his comments about Dr. Anthony Fauci, I don’t know how I can root for my team’s quarterback.

And if the Steelers organization decides this is just another controversy to ignore, it will have failed to stand up for a man who has spent his life serving this country, and who has meant more to the LGBTQ community than most people will ever understand.

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This week, in an interview with Pat McAfee on ESPN, Rodgers called Dr. Fauci “an absolute coward” while once again airing his grievances about the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s entitled to his opinions about government policy.

But that’s not what this is about.

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Meeting the moment during AIDS

This is about Rodgers choosing to smear a man whose life’s work has, for me, been devoted to saving other people’s lives.

Most Americans met Dr. Fauci during COVID. Gay men, and the LGBTQ community, met him more than 40 years ago during the AIDS crisis. And, he has stayed with us ever since.

I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Fauci numerous times over the past six years.

We initially talked about COVID. But the conversations I’ll always remember were about HIV and AIDS, about science, cures, programs and medications. What remains with me is his unbridled compassion.

Dr. Fauci spent decades confronting one of the deadliest epidemics in modern history. When he aligned himself with gay men and AIDS activists, he became a political target, stepping into a fight that few people wanted anything to do with.

As he evolved, he stood with gay men, AIDS victims and activists.

If you had AIDS, if you were gay, you were dehumanized at the time, scapegoated and stigmatized. You were a pariah to friends, family, co-workers and society as a whole.

I remember the fear. I remember watching friends become sick. I remember a government that was indifferent while scores of gay men kept dying. No one was coming to our rescue.

But Dr. Fauci did.

Did he get everything right in the early years? No. He has acknowledged that himself.

But unlike so many public officials, he listened. He learned. He changed.

He built relationships with ACT UP, a group that initially saw him as part of the problem. Through dialogue and mutual respect, he helped accelerate research, pushed for faster drug approvals and became someone many AIDS activists came to trust.

On Dr. Fauci’s watch came the development of lifesaving HIV treatments that have allowed millions of people around the world to live long, healthy lives. Today, researchers continue building on that work with long-acting injectable medications and the ongoing search for a cure.

Dr. Fauci has been at the center of that fight for more than 40 years, and his impact extends far beyond the United States.

During one of our conversations, he told me the accomplishment he was proudest of wasn’t his role during COVID or any award he’d received. It was PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, created under Republican President George W. Bush.

PEPFAR has saved millions of lives, particularly across sub-Saharan Africa, by making HIV treatment available to people who otherwise would have died.

PEPFAR has been severely impacted by funding freezes, award terminations and policy restrictions under the current administration. Those changes have shuttered HIV treatment and prevention sites, eliminated healthcare jobs and sharply reduced services for vulnerable populations. 

Projections indicate the cuts could cause hundreds of thousands to millions of AIDS-related deaths over the next several years.

Maybe, Aaron, you can figure out why PEPFAR has been singled out and slashed? And no thanks to you for maligning the distinguished, vaunted and extraordinarily empathetic Dr. Fauci who built it.

Aaron Rodgers, the great NFL quarterback who is flawed

Aaron Rodgers is one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation. He’s won a Super Bowl. He’ll likely be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But football greatness and moral authority are not the same thing.

What has always impressed me most about Dr. Fauci isn’t simply his scientific brilliance. It’s his humanity.

A few years ago, as some politicians once again tried to turn LGBTQ people into convenient political targets, I asked him about the wave of anti-gay rhetoric sweeping the country.

His answer has stayed with me ever since.

He told me he hadn’t seen that level of hostility directed toward gay men since the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic.

He understood what that hatred looked like because he’d lived through it alongside us. He treated AIDS patients, watched them die while he furiously fought for a cure. He stood with a community that so many people ignored.

I don’t want to stop rooting for the Steelers. I’ve invested too many years, too many Sundays and too much of my heart in this franchise.

But if it’s a choice between defending a man I love and admire or an uninformed quarterback, the answer is easy.

So here’s what I hope happens: Aaron Rodgers apologizes, not because Dr. Fauci needs his validation, but because decency demands it. A real apology. One that acknowledges reducing a lifetime of public service to an insult was beneath him.

If he doesn’t, every touchdown pass this season will come with the same uncomfortable thought: The quarterback of the team I’ve loved my entire life chose to insult a man who spent his entire life saving others.

That’s not something I can simply cheer through.

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