The Boyfriend
The Boyfriend donned their dapper make-up and apparel and pressed play on their boom box to begin. They marched out with posters depicting Elizabeth Taylor getting married at different stages of her life; she was the poster-girl for obvious reasons. They were bombastic, charming, and they punched up stereotypical homosexual traits by shaking their hips, generously gesticulatinghand gigglingmadlys while singing about this real and serious topic.
I've known Mark Simon, a member of the group, for a while now. He was the biggest supporter of my CoTour catalog a few years back. I wanted to support him by including his group in the wedding. I felt that it would have been cowardly not to address the equality issue when approaching the subject of marriage, and when he told me about this song they'd been practicing, I added The Boyfriend to the roster.
The song, duly appropriate, was "I just want to get married"
They were well into the song when I looked around the room and noticed a large disparity in moods. The side of the room with my friends, my family, Bec and Ruben's friends, and the artists were all delighted, laughing and clapping in support, but the side of the room where Bec and Ruben's families appeared visibly shaken, uncomfortable: not amused. This underscored the schism of the topic, and ushered another layer into the dynamic of this wedding, this art piece, this convergence of people. Not all of it would be harmonious. That's what made it more interesting, though I do feel badly that the families were confronted with something that was disconcerting for them on the day of the wedding. That said, generation gaps and discordant moral viewpoints exist and in every family there will be topics not seen eye-to-eye on. Never-the-less, in no time, the room boomeranged back to the celebration at hand.
Their statement:
“This was a musical salute to The Elizabeth Taylor 8 and the civil rights struggle of The Friends of Liz.”
*Tyler Hubby