I got suckered into it. My wife called me from work and wanted to know if we had anything planned for April 3rd. We didn't, and I couldn't think of
anything credible enough to tell her off the top of my head. So she bought two tickets to a choral concert. One of her co-workers sings in a men's
choir and they were putting on a concert on a Sunday afternoon. Well, I didn't really have anything important going on anyway - and this way she
couldn't complain when I wanted to sit and watch the first game of the baseball season all night. That's a fair trade in my book.
So we were talking about this choral concert and she mentions that her co-worker is gay. I didn't think a lot of it, except that his church must be pretty
accepting to allow an openly gay man to sing in their choir. Good for them. Then, I noticed that the tickets said the concert was at a theater. "Why," I
asked, "isn't the concert at their church?" My wife said she didn't know. Now I'm intrigued. "He said I should bring some tissues, because it's really
emotional." My wife says. "He said it's about equality." Equality. Thinking back on my years and years of Sunday School, my parochial school
upbringing, and the thousands of sermons I'd heard in my entire life, I couldn't remember a single one about equality. "Did he actually say that it was a
Church event?" I asked. My wife said that, now that she thought about it, he never did say that. We had both just assumed. Now I was certain: this
wasn't a religious event, it was a gay pride event.
But I was wrong. It was a religious event *and* a gay pride event. It was a concert that revolved around how organized religion treats (or mistreats)
their gay members. The event itself was very well done - professionally organized, a nationally known emcee that spoke eloquently and with passion
about the subject, and a very talented choir. Some of the lyrics were a bit cheesy, but others were extremely poignant (paraphrasing: "I'm not afraid of
your Jesus, I'm not afraid of your Allah, I'm afraid of the things you do in the name of your God...").
But what was more interesting than the event to me, was me. I have never been an activist of any sort, it's just not in my blood. Ranting about my
opinions on this website is as close to activism as I come (and that's pretty far away). So, going to this sort of thing was foreign to me. I have also
never really had an opportunity to be around gay people (or, I should say, to be around people that I knew were gay). I mean, I've known a few here
or there in my life, but this was a theater with a couple thousand people in it, and I'd say that as a straight man I was in the minority.
Now I have to tell you, that while I consider myself to be an open-minded and enlightened individual, I was raised in a conservative home, in a
conservative church, in a conservative midwest city. In the back of my mind I was a bit nervous going to this concert. Silly, right? I was worried that I
would somehow offend someone, that I wouldn't know the right thing to do or say, or that I would be looked at funny because I'm not gay and they'd
know just from looking at me and they wouldn't like me. Perhaps that is exactly how a gay person feels every day. But the funny thing was that nothing
of the sort happened. I was completely at ease the whole time. I didn't feel self-conscious laughing at jokes that were made about gay stereotypes. I
felt that, while I have no personal experience with the exact scenarios that were discussed, I could relate to the feelings of rejection and exclusion that
these men sang about.
Some of the people at the concert embodied the stereotypes of gay people. There were the "flaming" homosexuals that had all the hallmarks of gay.
But there were also a lot of people in attendance that didn't have any of those hallmarks. Some were not gay, but undoubtedly, many were. Some of
the men in the chorus showed pictures of their former lives when they were married, with children, the picture of average middle America. It is
extremely trite of me to say that you never know who around you might be gay, but I don't know that I really even understood how true that was until I
went to the concert. It seems absurd that I would have ever thought in the recesses of my mind that it would be otherwise.
So, I'm still not an activist. I may never go to another one of their concerts, not because it wasn't enjoyable, but because I know myself. But it was an
enjoyable time and I learned things about their cause and about myself. If you *are* an activist, or that *is* the type of thing you like to do, you can
check them out at this link. And for my Dad, whose heart is probably going a few ticks faster with worry that I'm going to say that I've decided that I'm
gay: don't worry, I'm straight and I'm proud, not that there's anything wrong with that.
And For No Apparent Reason
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