Sans Fig Leaf

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"Perspectives"

6 December, 2001

I sang with the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Chorus for the first eight years of its existence. And about this time every year, we would reach the climax of the annual Argument About The Christmas Eve Performance.

You see, every year we were invited, along the other gay and lesbian musical groups in the area, to sing at this theatre at midnight on Christmas Eve. So our directors at the time would select one or two appropriate songs and we would learn them.

The problem was that, like any gay and/or lesbian organization, it had a signifcant faction whose members were anti-Christian. Oh, they would seldom describe themselves that way, but that's how they were. They would start grousing. Even when the song chosen was a gay parody that begins, "It came upon a midnight clear, that horrible call from my mom. 'We'd love to see you at Christmas, dear, but please, don't bring your friend Tom.'" The grumblers had lots of objections. We were contributing to the opression of others. We were perpetuating culture genocide. We were forcing people to re-live horrible experiences from their childhood et cetera and ad nauseam (and boy, did it get nauseam!).

So some years we learned odd, politically-correct, completely culturally neutral "winter" songs. And other years there was a lot of grumbling and a lot of people didn't participate.

Finally, our new conductor had had it. He stopped rehearsal when he heard someone grumbling, and he explained why we were doing this. Several years ago a couple of people in the community had realized that there was a rather large number of gay men and lesbians they knew who didn't feel welcome "back home" or maybe their lover wasn't welcome. In any case, they stayed in the city and made do. They would like to be with their relatives, celebrating a holiday as they had as children, but they couldn't. So why not take the holiday back, these two reasoned. "Let's put on our own Christmas service. It won't be a church service, but we'll gather people together at midnight, and we'll sing christmas carols and we'll be each others family, just for that night."

So the people who come to this event, our conductor explained, are coming for a christmas show. They want to hear familiar tunes and forget, for just a little while, that their family has ostracized them for being gay.  They want to feel as if they belong and that they can celebrate Christmas, too. "Think of it as a community service," he said.

Sitting in the back row, I could see the little lightbulbs appearing like magic above the heads of several of the grumblers. Instead of wallowing in their own unresolved anger or bitterness about certain religions, they were suddenly seeing things from the points of view of the people who would be in the audience. And the grumbling ended (at least that year, I'm sure it comes up again each year).

We forget, sometimes, how much depends upon perspective. Certain reactionary christians of my acquaintance look at the tinsel and lights and trees and presents, and make harsh criticisms of the perversion and commercialisation of their ancient holy day (which, for the record, isn't really that ancient, and was considered a very minor religious holiday until the nineteenth century). Meanwhile, radical acquaintances look at precisely the same trappings and see oppressive, insidious, pro-Christian propaganda being shoved down everyone's throat.

I really prefer my perspective: it's a great excuse to decorate my house, invite friends over, share some goodies, and have a good time. The fact that it gives me an additional excuse to give things to my friends is gravy!

It's more than just how you look at it. It's also how you live it and why you do it.