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Lone
Wolf
Howl:
MINORITY
REPORT
(Originally
published
in
Calgary
Country: August 2004)
Last month I was in Montreal for three days at the Gay and Lesbian Association Choral Festival. 160 choruses, 6000 delegates from around the world, all gathered to sing songs of joy, songs of love, and songs about the moon. I wrote lyrics for a new piece to be performed there, so I was eager to attend and hear the composition performed live. I'm a straight, white, anglophone male with a university degree and a major credit card. I can go virtually anywhere in North America -- and most of the western world -- and be part of the 'in' crowd. The world -- with its straight, white, english-speaking civilization -- is my oyster. Yet for three days, I was in a predominantly francophone, exclusively gay world. My first drink of homeland minority and I made it a double. When I walked into a café on rue St. Denis, and smiled my best 'bon jour', the barista happily slid into English and took my order. When I sat down with my café au lait at a table of GALA delegates, the conversation was robust, friendly, and witty in a way you just don't find at your friendly neighbourhood Smitty's. Did it matter to the counter staff that their official language -- a language they still fight to preserve -- fell in broken embarrassment from my tongue? Non. Did it matter to my coffee companions that I came into this world with the oddball tendency of being attracted to members of the opposite sex? Not at all. Some of them were even married (the delegates, not the coffee staff). We shared stories about our weddings, how mine was in a field at sunrise and theirs was at city hall with 2000 other couples (you see, they had to do theirs quickly before some governor changed his mind, while my wife and I had months to plan ours). We talked about lots of other things too: George Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11, mad cows, the Flames. We talked about our children, our spouses, the lovers we have had in our lives and the ones who have had us. We talked about the price of gas, the best way to iron a linen shirt, the depression that seems to come hand in hand with the profession of being creative. We had intensely spiritual discussions, but never once did we mention God or Jesus or what the bible has to say about marriage. It just never came up. Talkers without boarders. Later that Sunday, I attended one of the choral performances. The Chicago Gay Men's Chorus set a short poem of Walt Whitman's to music and I watched a young man in the seat ahead of me burst into tears upon hearing it. Never before had I witnessed someone become so emotionally raw in so short a time. It was beautiful. It's been said that if we (the white, straight, anglo majority) allow same-sex marriage to go forward it will be the end of civilization as we know it. I think Bush said it. Maybe it was Klein. Or Harper. Maybe I just overheard it at Cochrane Coffee Traders. Regardless of who said it, I would have to agree with him (I'm pretty sure it was a male). It's about time our civilization reached its conclusion. If my three days in the minority are any indication of the civilization to come, then we can't throw the doors of the chapel open fast enough. Back to Resources Page |