Dear Friends, On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned 50+ years of precedent, depriving people of their bodily autonomy. Like so many people across the country, we are angry, determined, and find ourselves asking what comes next and what action that will demand from each of us. At our Pride Concert, outgoing Board President Michael Conwill's offered this prescient reflection:
For 45 years The Stonewall Chorale has been a trailblazer as the first LGBTQ choir in the nation in the late 1970s, less than a decade after the Stonewall uprising. We endured the worst of the AIDS crisis when many of our members succumbed to the disease in the 1980s and early 1990s; then through the 1990s and into the new millennium, we celebrated political and legal victory after victory in guaranteeing LGBTQ people the same rights as everyone else in this country, undoing the deliberate bigotries that had been enshrined in our laws and culture.
Now a calculated, relentless, undemocratic political movement threatens to undo all of the progress we have made. As our rights were affirmed through the years, we were often presented with the question of what is the rationale for specifically LGBTQ organizations, a question which in the last five years needs no explanation.
Our visibility, our outreach, and our political actions are as important now as they were to the crowds that formed around the Stonewall bar in 1969.
While we had planned to participate in a Give OUT Day campaign this week, we recognize that now is a time to engage in meaningful and tangible allyship with organizations directly supporting reproductive freedom. In addition to larger organizations like Planned Parenthood, we recommend supporting The Brigid Alliance, a referral-based service that provides travel, food, lodging, child care and other logistical support for people seeking abortions. The Stonewall Chorale has always been vocal and active in the fight for equality, and we will continue this fight, especially now. With determination and resolve, Emily McSpadden, President, Board of Directors Cynthia Powell, Artistic Director