When I chose to fund Heartland Men’s Chorus’ commissioning of composer Mark Hayes to create a piece that would support HMC’s vision statement, I had no idea how perfect his work would be, that with every crescendo it would enlighten, inspire, heal and empower… and then some!

Times have changed, thank goodness, for LGBT men and women and their family and friends, letting their truth be known… it didn’t used to be and still isn’t in some faith communities and certain parts of our country.

I’ve had the privilege of listening to their stories through counseling and in many advocacy trips both near and far. Many others have been thrown out of their homes into the streets to fend for themselves. One extreme case was shared. After coming out to his parents a young man’s pastor-father placed a gun in his son’s room and said “you know what to do with it.” That’s beyond the pale. But there also are millions who say the accept their son or daughter but emphasize that homosexuality is a sin and many take that insult in order to keep a relationship with family.

But there is an alternative. My son’s story is happily different. Twenty five years ago he got up the courage to come out to his father and me. As gay positive as I thought I was, I cried. It’s an automatic reaction. In that moment, a mother may feel as if s the hasn’t known her son or daughter and grieves that he hasn’t felt like telling her before. My son actually nurtured me in that moment, asking me to explain. I did, and the moment passed in brief time. His father also accepted him unconditionally as did his sister and the rest is a happy family history.

Even if the coming out experience is in adulthood it is vital to the quality of life for any LGBT person and loved ones.

HMC strives to support LGBT persons in living an honest and full life. Not only in concerts but in long trips and to local schools they reach out to all ages voicing their encouragement.

Mark Hayes has penned a song that does this beautifully, showing in music that “there’s got to be a better way.”

If you are in the closet, you are living the life of a former prejudiced time, you are missing out on an open and honest life. Your are hiding. If you are a parent or family member or friend the same is true. If quietly supporting them, or worse, not supporting at all… now is the time to get off the bench and openly be there for them.  SING OUT!

“Life gets better, the future’s brighter, burdens are lighter when with our voices we sing out.”

Gay or straight, I urge you to find ways to stand up for inclusion in this retro-political era of leaders who strive for exclusion.

Join the chorus or one of the many fine Kansas City organizations advocating for what is right. What is the alternative? Hiding in the closet you have built for yourself or loved ones? I ask you to Sing Out! Bless you in your continued journey.

 I fell in love with Fred Small’s beautiful lullaby, “Everything Possible,” when I first heard it on The Flirtations maiden album in 1990.  Chills still run down my spine whenever I hear it sung by Heartland Men’s Chorus.

“Everything Possible” is a parent’s song of unconditional love and affirmation, and of unlimited possibilities for living a genuine and authentic life. The parent’s offer, in the opening verse, to “sing you a song no one sang to me,” makes me wonder how different my growing up, and my life, would have been if my parents had sung a similar song to me.  Tears well up in my eyes when the lullaby affirms:

You can be anybody you want to be,

You can love whomever you will.

You can travel any country where your heart leads

And know that I will love you still.

I grew up in a fairly conservative, white, Protestant, rural community.  Conformity to social norms was strictly enforced at school, at church, and at home.  If you wanted the friendship and respect of your peers, and if you wanted to succeed in school and in life, you had to look and behave just like everyone else.  Nonconformists were taunted as “sissies” or “tomboys” or “queers”, and no one could be friends with someone like that.  In response, the song counsels:

Don’t be rattled by taunts, by games,

But seek out spirits true.

If you give your friends the best part of yourself,

They’ll give the same back to you.

If only that could have been true, both for me and for untold numbers of LGBT youth who learned to hide and deny our true selves in order to conform.  It is unfathomable how much energy is wasted by trying to conform and “pass”’; unimaginable how many young gay lives have been lost to teen suicide or maimed by bullying and harassment.

The ultimate moral of the lullaby is grounded in love.  After opening the world of possibilities and encouraging the listener to pursue their dreams and to be true to their authentic selves, the song exhorts:

And the only measure of your words and your deeds

Will be the love you leave behind when you’re done.

My late partner, Steve Metzler, and I loved the powerful message of this song so much that I asked Heartland Men’s Chorus to sing it at his funeral.  So many of our friends came up later to ask about “that song,” and how moved they were by it.  This song embodies the HMC vision:  “Our voices enlighten, inspire, heal and empower.”

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.