Marching Bands and Rushing Judgments
Filed by: Patricia Nell Warren
January 22, 2009 3:30 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/marching_bands_and_rushing_to_judgment.phpWhile so many of us were angrily beating our drums over alleged sabotage of Bishop Robinson's LGBT prayer, an LGBT marching band was happily doing a brass fanfare of history as it came filing down Pennsylvania Avenue during the Inauguration Parade. The 177 marchers were blended perfectly into all the choreographed movements along the street -- rolling their feet like well-trained band musicians are supposed to do, moving at that majestic pace of a 8-5 step-size.
These musicians and cheer squad were the first LGBT band ever to march in a Presidential inauguration parade. The unit was put together from several bands belonging to the international Lesbian and Gay Band Association. They had to do some fierce fundraising to travel there -- probably around $50,000. There they were, side by side with the armed-forces bands, and high-school bands, and church bands, and b->-bleeped-<-ipe bands, and fife-and-drum corps in colonial uniform. There they were, with the Tuskegee Airmen, and the Crow Nation of Montana, and the U.S. Border Patrol.
