Why We Sing...

The social justice blog has been a tad neglected over the past couple of months due to the social justice choir's speedy start to the year! However, since we have begun to sing together the world has seemed to make a very disappointing shift in regard to the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

When this was the theme I chose it came from personal experiences I have had in my own life. As this will be my last time working with this group I wanted the theme of our work to be something near and dear to my heart. Little did I know how important our message would become. The topic of the LGBTQ+ community was born out of a search for legal protection in the workplace. As a young professional trying to enter the work force I began to become increasingly aware of the fact that employers promoting diverse highering always seemed to leave out that LGBTQ+ people are an underrepresented group whose persective is worth hearing and seeing in the workplace. Then I did research to find no federal policies protecting the LGBTQ+ people against being discriminated in the workforce. So not only are they not a perspective worth hearing; they also don't have federal protection against discrimination in the work place.

This lead me further down a trail to find if there were any legal protection for LGBTQ+ people in the work place, what I found was very disappointing. In only 20 states are there state mandated protections against discrimination for people of diverse sexual ore nation and gender identity if both private and public state businesses. In Indiana it is prohibited to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation in public and private business, while it is allowed to discriminate against gender identity in private institutions. In Alaska, Montana, Arizona, Kentucky, and Ohio it is allowed for discrimination against sexual orientation in a private business. In Wisconsin there are only protections for people's sexual orientation in public and private businesses. In Idaho, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama there are only protections for people's gender identity in public and private institutions. In Virginia and North Carolina the protections apply to people's sexual orientation and people's gender identity, but only apply in public places of business. In Missouri the only protections offered are for people's sexual orientation and they only apply to public businesses. States with no protections, meaning it is perfectly legal to discriminate against someone in the workplace placed on both sexual orientation and/or their gender identity, are North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

This frustration birthed the topic of LGBTQ+ perspective in our world. Not only is there not a call for representation there are plans to continue to silence the community. This is why our entire program will be by composers who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community, throughout history, to promote their perspective in the musical community. Our goal is to highlight their unique voice, as well as draw attention to famous composers and musicians who shaped music history as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

However, our job was not done there because it seems the situation has only continued to get worse since the time when I had done my initial research. As of recent I have read news stories talking of lynchings of gay people across the world, the erasing of transgender rights across the country, the US backing out of the UN Human Rights Council allowing for the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in foreign countries, and the rise of hate crime against LGBTQ+ people all across our country. This program began as a way to been as equals and now it has turned into a fight to be seen as people.

People in the community are being seen as less than human, and the flood of terrible news is keeping us from being able to fix anything before we find something new to be outraged and heart broken over.

Now not only are we promoting the voices of LGBTQ+ composers and musicians we are shedding a spotlight of the horrifying adverse experiences of those within the LGBTQ+ community. The Gustavus Social Justice Choir will stand together in song and stand up for the rights, the voices, and people who make up the beauty that is the LGBTQ+ community.

For," All Us, Together in Song, Do Not Walk Alone", because our voices and our lives will not be erased!

Sincerely,

Michael Mckenzie

Conductor and Artistic Director of GSJC

Attached is an article if you wish to continue to educate yourselves about the horrors within the LGBTQ+ community.