Are you stunned? We’d like to politely suggest you should be!

This morning the Associated Press reported on the ongoing fallout from President Trump’s unpatriotic proposal to ban open military service for transgender Americans – and we are stunned at what we read:

“Discussions [among Pentagon personnel] illustrate that Trump’s aides aren’t writing off his three-tweet salvo last week as an isolated outburst but as guidance for an upheaval in one of the military’s most sensitive equal rights questions.”

Trump’s off-the-cuff decision to announce a major policy change via Twitter – a policy change that Department of Defense officials were apparently not aware of, a policy change that 58% of Americans oppose, a policy change that top military veterans and Republican leaders reject – is being taken seriously, and attempts to implement this discrimination are being made right now.

Transgender people had been serving openly in the military for 392 days between the Pentagon’s June 2016 landmark announcement and Trump’s tweets. For 392 days, the military – the largest employer of LGBT people in the country – had ended its shameful history of discriminating against people simply because of their gender identity.

No employer, including the United States government, should be able to wake up one day and terminate thousands of LGBT people by firing off a few tweets.

That’s what we sing for. We envision a country where LGBTQ people are fully protected from discrimination in every area of life – employment, housing, public accommodations.

That’s why we sing. Won’t you come join us and give Heartland Men’s Chorus a try? Attend one of our first two rehearsals on September 5 or September 12, 7 PM at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Kansas City. For more information, visit hmckc.org.