I will never forget waking up and turning on the TV to the breaking news from Orlando. Still lying in bed, I listened as bit by bit the horror unfolded. The words froze in time as I heard them – “gunman,” “terrorist,” “mass casualties” and finally “gay.” It was a gay club. It was our family on that floor. The attack had become very personal as I watched in numbing sadness and disbelief.
Then the phone started to ring. Just hours after we opened for Carley Rae Jepsen at the San Diego County Fair, we were asked to perform once again. Only this time it was much different and the euphoria of the fair felt like a distant memory. Within hours, all 150 singers of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus were lined up outside The Center ready to help comfort a grieving community.
We needed comfort too. As we sang the wistful “Over the Rainbow,” its words took on new meaning to many of us: “Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll find me.” Like all “friends of Dorothy” before us, through our own tears and fears, we came to understand the song’s hopeful longing for a land where skies are blue.
Music has that power. A song can comfort and heal. In fact, it can bring together the entire world in times of sadness and in times of hope.
For more than three decades, gay choruses around the world have served a central role of hope and comfort within the LGBT community. During the AIDS crisis, the gay choruses were drawn time and again to memorial services, too often for their own members. When SDGMC began in 1985, it was a powerful statement to simply stand on a public stage as an openly gay man. Just being visible was a major step forward in those early days of gay rights. But we hoped for a better world.
Today, being visible may be easier, but it remains just as important. Which is why most gay choruses prominently include the word “gay” in their names. Following the Orlando tragedy, the world watched as the London Gay Men’s Chorus sang “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” in a crowded Soho neighborhood vigil. The New York City Gay Men’s Chorus stood as one in Times Square to pay tribute in song on ABC’s Good Morning America. The Orlando Gay Chorus sang “True Colors” for its grieving brothers and sisters.
Millions of people in every country have now seen an openly gay chorus perform. Millions of kids, who may be questioning or gay, now see even more that they are not alone because they saw one of our gay choruses performing.
Just last week I received a message from the mother of a gay son. Even though she lives 2,000 miles from San Diego, she follows us on Facebook. What made my heart skip a beat was when she wrote: “You give me hope for happiness for my son!” Those exact words.
As I sit back and picture this mother hugging her gay son with a smile on her face, I just know that all his troubles will melt away … just like those lemon drops.
