Merle haggard gay
Man behind 'world's first gay country album' tours country nearly 50 years after first album release
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — In his tardy 70s, one dude has suddenly set up himself touring the country playing songs he thought the world would never hear. Nearly 50 years after the release of his first album, he's just released a second, and he's now traveling Tennessee playing the tune.
This is the story of a trailblazer, and the bold album that's his legacy.
What was country music in 1973? It was six weeks at number one for Conway Twitty, large hits for Loretta Lynn, three singles reaching number one for Merle Haggard.
In the midst of this state scene of '73, a very diverse country album was quietly released. It was an album called Lavender State, an album self-titled after the band. The man behind the album is Patrick Haggerty.
"What was unique about it is it was the world's first gay country album," said Haggerty.
Growing up on a dairy farm in Washington, Haggerty's family knew he was lgbtq+, and they loved and accepted him. He said problems came later. He said when operational for the Calm Corps, his sexuality was discovered.
"Next time I was on a plane to
The first thing I want to speak is that all of us possess friends who are gay; it's just that some of us don't understand it. A not many weeks ago, 14,000 members of the New Life Church in Colorado didn't know that their pastor, Ted Haggard, was gay or at the very least, "bi-curious." They do now.
Complicating that plot is that Rev. Haggard was not only the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, he apparently bought and used crystal methamphetamine and had weekly mobile calls with George W. Bush. That gives rise to the strange proposition that the president of the Merged States was getting constant advice from what my cop friends refer to as a "meth head." To combine to the elixir, while Rev. Haggard was consorting with a male prostitute, he was also campaigning for a state law banning gay marriage. Franz Kafka, who wrote stories about life's absurdities, would contain had trouble scripting this one.
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5 Queer Country Songs to Create the Yuletide Gay
It's beginning to feel a lot like the holidays. While we all eagerly await the opportunity to leisurely down, for many of us, the holidays can be stressful as well. Country music is all about yearning for family and hometown pride, but for many people, that nostalgia is a double-edged sword of anxiety and pain. But why wallow in it when you can laugh?
Some of these queer territory songs poke fun at the holidays, while others revel in winter nights of chosen family and togetherness. No matter the tone, these five songs receive down to the holiday spirit: finding community when the nights get dark and cold.
To our knowledge, this is the first and only queer country song devoted to Hanukkah, meaning there's a wide-open slot for next year's holiday list. Byrne and Graves hover the flag high for Jewish people living in hostile communities. The cheerful arrangement plunges headlong into a rollicking beat and furious fiddling as Byrne casts off a sense of isolation, celebrating the miracle of eight crazy nights with the titular giant inflatable menorah.
It wouldn't be a list of country songs without some deeply bitter
Thread: U-La-La, the 1st Gay University
The backlash continues...
From today's Lafayette Daily Advertiser:
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette began offering this past spring a sociology minor in Lesbian, Male lover, Bisexual and Transgender, or LGBT, studies, and the program has attracted outrage from some Lafayette residents, including a U.S. congressman who wants the program dropped from the school’s curriculum.
The same date Savoie published his blog post on the brand-new minor, U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, wrote Savoie a letter saying he was “extremely disappointed” in the university’s judgment to offer the LGBT studies minor because it “fails to provide an economic benefit to the participates or financial meaning for the taxpayer.” Landry, who is seeking re-election this fall, asked Savoie to “drop this academic program.”
“As a confident alumnus and the son of two alumni, I have always been grateful of the education I received at ULL and the institution’s contribution to Acadiana, Louisiana at the nation, but I am concerned if future graduates will be able to say the same,”