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Recalling When Gays Countered Helms' Hate with Love on the Street Where He Lived |
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by Bruce-Michael Gelbert
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| Love Night Gay Men's Chorus & conductor Rick Jensen (front, fourth from right) courtesy of Brad Whitaker |
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When outspoken racist and homophobic former North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms died, at age 86 on the Fourth of the July, it brought back memories of a day in the summer of 1995 when-at the instigation of filmmaker Michael Moore ("Fahrenheit 9/11," "Sicko," "Bowling for Columbine"), then director and host of Fox television show "TV Nation"-an cappella choir of gay men from New York sought to defuse Helms' relentless hate by delivering a pointed musical message of love.
On July 31, 1995, the 18-member, ad hoc 'TV Nation Love Night Gay Men's Chorus,' including singers from the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, individuals associated with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, a Metropolitan Opera chorister, a soap opera star, and unaffiliated vocalists, such as this writer, under the musical direction of cabaret singer-songwriter Rick Jensen, serenaded Senator Helms beneath his windows at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in Washington, D.C., and before the home he and spouse Dorothy Coble Helms maintained in Arlington, Virginia. The original intent had been to sing Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's "Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine," lustily and impudently, to Helms, but this was softened, before rehearsals began, to Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "What the World Needs Now (is love, sweet love)," in five-part harmony, arranged by Rick, which we sang in the capital in the afternoon.
We had a brief, seemingly cordial encounter with Ms. Helms, at her door, in Arlington that evening, and then spontaneously burst into Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's "On the Street Where You Live," from "My Fair Lady," as the cameras continued to roll.
"TV Nation" staff member Kate O'Callaghan directed this segment of the "TV Nation Love Night" program, which aired in mid-August 1995 and also featured a Mexican Mariachi band, abetted by African-American cheerleaders, confronting white supremacists in Georgia.
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