Controversy

The Gay Men's Chorus of San Diego is scheduled to perform the National Anthem at a Padres game on July 8th. As a member of the Chorus I am very honored to be part of this event. However this has started such a controversy all over town. The Padres have received over 4000 emails and calls protesting our upcoming appearance. Some of the few that I have read are simply stupid, others are hateful. Such ignorance, stupidity, and fear is unbelievable. I was relieved that many heterosexuals had replied to some of those e-mails, showing common sense, love and acceptance.

I guess living in a state that is overall very liberal, gives us the "false" impression that people do not care about sexual orientation, and will accept me for who I am as a person and not who I sleep with. What a misconception, and what a wake-up call this is for me.

That someone might not go to the game because we will be singing for 1 minute and 20 seconds, blows my mind. Okay there might be some gay people in the audience too. It certainly will not be the first time that gay and lesbians go to a game. What do people think we will be doing in the stands other than eat a hot dog, drink a beer and cheer the teams? Oh true, we have to recruit the young. I forgot about the rule that every true gay person has to abide by. Recruit more young children to our "cause". As my roommate joked tonight, he would not go after the children anyway, but their dads!!!

Lots of people are missing the point. We have been oppressed, discriminated against on a daily basis, and killed; just because others disagree with who we choose to sleep with, live with, love and have a relationship with. We would not need to show that we are normal people, if we were not told constantly that we are not. The reasons we have Pride parades or nights like this one is to try to educate. We are people trying to live our lives the best we can, with all its difficulties and challenges, joys and successes.

Do not humor me with "family values" and "religion righteousness'". More than half of marriages end up in divorce. As for the church-goers, if you cannot love or accept people who are different from yourself, you obviously misread the "book".

So if people do not want their children to be exposed to "the gays" maybe they should keep them home with them. They will not tarnish an awesome opportunity for a group of wonderful men, with their hatred, their ignorance and their stupidity.