September 11, 2001, is a day that no one who lived through will ever forget. The planes took off from Boston, and crashed in New York City and Washington, D.C. This was in the days before Facebook, and even mobile phones were just starting to become popular; not everyone had one. Several member/partners of members of the BGMC were flight attendants on the airlines involved. It would be days before we were certain of everyone’s safety. It was even longer as we waited to hear about our friends in the other cities. Because of the flights originating at Logan, many of the dead were from Boston and the surrounding area. While we did not lose any BGMC members or partners, chorus members did have family and friends who were lost that day.
Michelle Chassé started working with us in 2002, choreographing dancers for our Out at the Movies concert. Trained at the Boston Ballet School and the School of American Ballet in New York City, she became resident choreographer and musical theater dance coordinator at her alma mater, The Boston Conservatory, in 2000. Today she is chair of musical theater dance at the school. In 2014 she won the ArtsImpulse Theater Award for best choreography for On the Town at the Conservatory.
In 2003, the chorus was the subject of a PBS documentary. The Visionaries, hosted by Sam Waterson, produces documentaries for PBS about non-profit organizations making change in the world. The documentary won a Telly award. In a decade we had gone from not allowing local television stations to record us for the evening news, to becoming the subject a documentary that would air nationwide.
The following year we started our youth outreach concert series. These concerts involve the chorus working with local schools to produce shows that will benefit schools and their gay/straight alliances. The first concert, at Belmont High School, was standing room only.
Now that AIDS deaths had reduced so dramatically, and anti-discrimination bills had passed in many states, the LGBTQ community had turned its eyes to marriage rights. At the end of 1999 the Vermont Supreme court ordered the legislature to grant equal marriage or an equivalent status to same-sex couples. The legislature chose to create civil unions, the first legal equivalent status in America.
In Massachusetts, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition were working hard to get equal marriage in place in Massachusetts. Mary Bonauto and GLAD filed suit in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in 2001. Freedom to Marry worked to change the minds of the public and members of the legislature. Two of the seven plaintiff couples were longtime supporters of the chorus: David Wilson and his partner Robert Compton, and Michael Horgan and his partner Ed Balmelli. The case was heard in March 2002, and the court issued its ruling against the couples. GLAD immediately appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, and argued the case on March 4, 2003. On November 18, 2003, summary judgement was granted to the defendants. We had won our case, but the battle was not yet over.
The SJC gave the state six months to prepare, ordering licenses to be issued beginning on May 17, 2004. The legislature queried the SJC, asking if they, like Vermont, could create a separate-but-equal civil union system. The SJC responded by saying that only marriage was allowed, as anything else was discrimination. Anti-gay forces were working hard to get the legislature to block implementation of the decision while they marshalled forces to get an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution passed. The BGMC sprang into action.
For years we and other choruses had been singing Marry Us, one of the movements from Naked Man. Composer Robert Seeley waived his royalties so we could create CDs of our version of the song and distribute them to the legislature. The cover read:
On Behalf of the 175 volunteer members of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus and our 10,00 annual supporters, please enjoy this complimentary single. This special disc was created to enhance understanding about the issue of gay marriage and was paid for by private funds.
Members of the chorus descended on the state house to distribute a copy of the CD to ever member of both houses of the legislature on the day of the final vote. The building was crammed with people on both sides of the issue, but BGMC members were warmly received in most offices. As word got around the building about what was happening, many staff members were given strict instructions to let the senator/representative know as soon as the BGMC arrived, so that they could meet with them personally and accept the CD. We were later told that the gesture was indeed quite helpful in changing the minds of some members. Enough that opponents lost their battle.
On May 17, 2004, the first day that licenses were issued, the seven plaintiff couples all married. Plaintiffs David Wilson and Robert Compton married at Arlington Street Church, and members of the chorus were there to serenade them and start them on this new chapter in their lives. The BGMC was once more a part of making history with the image of the chorus surrounding the happy couple on the front page of The New York Times.