As I said in the post, I understand why the decision was made. I don’t agree with it, but I do understand. And also as I said above, there are clear benefits to choosing what you have chosen, and you are right to point them out.

But these things being said, I find it telling that some of the old familiar anti-gay stereotypes turned up in your defense of the policy. Bitter queens? In your face activism? …thongs???

Please, think for a moment about what side you’re taking by stereotyping the rest of us. And then consider whether being a “gay” chorus, in name as well as in fact, is really all that bad.

But perhaps some more perspective is in order. Let me remind you that we are in Dallas. This is the city were John Kennedy was assassinated. After that, the whole world blamed our city for his death. I mean, when citizens of our town would travel and state where they were from, they’d get the most horrid reactions, as if they had pulled the trigger themselves. This eventually made already conservative Dallasites introverted in the extreme, and the gay community was not immune to this social phenomenon. The so-called “Dallas attitude”, which so many people believe is an unwarranted snobbery exhibited here is really nothing more than a hangover of this terrible introversion and anal retention. At one point in my living here, I was willing to swear that most residents had made appointments at Baylor Medical Center to have their rectums sewn shut!

In that kind of environment, you simply do not hike a thong up your butt cheeks and parade down Main Street singing “we’re here, we’re queer”, at least not in the 1980s. For Pete’s sake, Ronald Reagan came to Dallas for the 1984 Republican Convention as the first sitting president to visit this city since the Kennedy assassination. The city was still very uptight!

The Turtle Creek Chorale was born and grew up in that environment. And in the 1980s also faced some hard times that threatened its existence (like an IRS audit prior to having its 501(c)3 status correctly filed). To say nothing of the AIDS crisis which gripped all gay choruses. But when the chorus as a whole was “outed” in the Dallas Morning News as being “predominantly gay” (which the whole town already knew anyway), there was a moment of nervousness, and then a sigh of relief. And then a new era in the life of the TCC was launched.

And no, it was not like any other gay chorus. And that doesn’t make it wrong. Just different. And for people who are supposed to be all about embracing diversity, it strikes me as ironic to hear all these insistences that TCC be just like everybody else!! My way or the highway!! Why do you have to make everybody who differs with you wrong?

The TCC has had some amazing successes doing business in its unique way. By focusing itself as an arts organization, and achieving excellence in this arena, we’ve developed audiences and built bridges to other communities that might not have been reachable through a primary focus on gay activism. (And frankly, other gay choruses who’ve followed suit have also enjoyed similar success).

And while we have on occasion been rejected for being gay, we’re not out to collect such rejections as badges of honor. On the other hand, it warms our hearts immensely when someone who has no idea that we’re gay comes to one of our concerts or buys one of our CDs, falls in love with our music, and then finds out that we’re a gay chorus. And because of our music, they are forced into a conflict between two emotions — the love for our music, and by extension for the makers of that music — and whatever feelings they may have had about homosexuals, whether it be antipathy or apathy. We’ve received so many letters and testimonials over the years from people who’ve been “hooked” in this way. Hearts and minds are being changed that otherwise would still be on the other side. Do you still want to call that homophobic? The gay people know we are gay without us blaring it out through bullhorns. Back before I came out and was still in a heterosexual marriage, I knew the Turtle Creek Chorale was a gay men’s chorus. And I also knew they were very highly regarded.

In our chorus, we have men who’ve been married, who have children, for whom the very act of coming out to themselves takes immense personal courage. They want to sing. It helps to be able to tell their families that they are singing in the Turtle Creek Chorale, as opposed to a “gay” chorus. We serve OUR community.

In our part of the world, this is what works. Our outreach has extended to your part of the world, and I suspect this is what stings the likes of you. You want us to adopt your brand of in-your-face activism. If TCC had done this in Dallas, Texas, a “Gay Mens Chorus of Dallas” would have spent most of its life with fewer than 40 singers and might not have survived at all. We’d be singing in disreputable venues to small audiences with a third-rate conductor. Because that’s how things can be in Dallas. And GALA certainly would not have benefited from the leadership that TCC has offered it.

I will admit to being very selfish in my opinion about this subject. But I’m also just a little tired of the abuse. We’re supposed to respect and uplift each other. We all have to live in our own house and make it on the resources available to us. And from that, we can share with others. Can we put this one to bed, once and for all?