The Shawnee Mission East class of '08 loves its gay homecoming king

"The reason why I love his family is they're the most open-minded family you could ever have," Matthew says. Jonathan's dad, an ordained minister, is one of the four straight men in the Heartland Men's Chorus, and two of their neighbors are gay couples.

Jonathan talks about how some people they know think the topic of sexual preference is weird. Matthew brings up a recent trip to Colorado with an all-male ultimate Frisbee team. No one even said anything about him being gay.

"Pope did such a good job with, like, how he came out. It's just, like, he made it so comfortable to be like, 'Oh, Pope's gay. Let's make fun of him about it — kind of,'" Jonathan explains.

"Not make fun about it, but making fun of how people could take it," Matthew says.

"No one does. So we just kind of make fun. It's better than doing it in a mean way," Jonathan says. Speaking of mean ways, Matthew reminds his friends about the time he got rocks thrown at him. He went to the homecoming dance at Shawnee Mission North with a female friend, and at the after-party, two North guys instigated a fight. But then, he says, everyone else at the party broke it up and asked him if he was OK.

"They're just North," Jonathan says.

"Yeah, they're North. They're different," Matthew replies.

"That's all. That's all it is," Jonathan says.

During the summer before Matthew's junior year, his dad died unexpectedly. His heart just stopped. Richard Pope had worked at Central Plains Steel in sales. He helped design their house, and he owned a restaurant. Matthew inherited his love of singing from his dad. In tribute, his mom paid for Matthew to get a tattoo when he turned 18 in March. His right shoulder blade bears a 2-inch banner that reads, "Dad." It's surrounded by music notes and is enclosed by a circle of dots. Their mutual love of music and singing now lives on in a pattern of dark ink.

After coming out to his sister in her car, they drove home to tell their mom. After they got home, they went to the kitchen and put some ice cream in bowls — Katie's suggestion, in case Matthew needed to focus on something if he couldn't talk. Then they went into their parents' room.

"Matthew has something to tell you," Katie told Teri, who sat up. Matthew stood in the doorway, practically hiding. He was unable to look at his mom. He picked through his ice cream and ate around the tiny peanut-butter cups.

Teri Pope's first reaction was stunned silence. Then she said calmly, "How do you know? You're too young. You don't know."

Matthew took this as the rejection he'd feared. He started crying, and everything went blurry. "I'm not too young," he said. "Oh, my God, I can't believe this. Why are you saying this? I'm not too young. I know I am." He still tried to eat his ice cream.

Teri was just trying to understand. She had never met anyone who was openly gay; she grew up in a military family and was the product of Catholic schools. She wanted to understand and wanted him to explain more, but Matthew heard it as rejection.

Matthew slammed his bowl of ice cream on the bathroom counter. Matthew and Katie went to the basement, where their brother was working on his computer.

"Yeah, I already knew. I kind of go to the same school," Michael replied. They all started laughing.

Teri told Matthew's father, Richard Pope, who acted a little awkward with Matthew at first. One night not long after, it was just the two of them at home. KU was playing that night, and it was tradition for the family to watch it at Birdies. They'd take a bag full of KU paraphernalia to put on tables during the games — a little stuffed Jayhawk, pompoms, red and blue beads, and Richard's old KU jacket. But Matthew wasn't sure if his father would still ask him to go. But then his father said, "Let's get the bag together." In the car, they talked about school.

The rift with his mom took longer to heal. "We still had a relationship, but for me, it always felt a little part was just keeping us apart. It wasn't fun," he says. He admits that he wasn't mature enough to understand where she was coming from and that he over-reacted and misinterpreted her questions and actions as being anti-gay. During his freshman year, he hung out a lot with juniors and seniors and sometimes sneaked out of the house to meet his friends. He took umbrage at his mom's suggestions that he needed more friends his age as well as her attempts to enforce his curfew. "You never put these rules on Katie or Michael. I can't believe you're doing this to me!" he told her.

They finally mended their relationship right before Matthew's senior year. He left a letter for her explaining that he didn't want to have to conceal things from her and he wanted their relationship to go back to how it was when he was younger. He told her about James, whom he had just started dating, and how he wanted James to go to homecoming with him.