Here for It

 

Matthew Spear

Dr. Juniper Ellis

EN346D.01 Seminar: Humor Studies

13 March 2023

Here for It

            In “Here for It, or How to Save Your Soul in America” R. Eric Thomas recounts his marriage to a Presbyterian minister and in doing so reveals the depth of the influence of LGBTQ culture in modern American society. Beginning with a recollection of his experience at Pride parades through downtown Philadelphia, Thomas explores the experiences of gay and queer people at different stages of their lives at the parade. There are those who are there for the first time as an act of liberation, those who have been to Pride parades many times and are “over it,” those who are there as business professionals promoting gay-affirming institutions, and finally those gay elders that Thomas expresses his desire to ascend to one day. As Thomas begins exploring his relationship with a gay Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia, he interweaves themes of Whitney Houston and her music. However, his recounting of his own wedding was the writing which I found most interesting. A gay marriage in a Presbyterian church, let alone a wedding between a minister of that church and another man, would have been nigh unthinkable a mere 20 years ago. Yet, Eric recounts the triumph of his gay and interracial wedding in a Presbyterian ceremony with the full participation of the congregation and the celebration at the reception which followed. At the reception, which Eric planned, gay, straight, interracial, young, old, veterans, and couples comprised of all of the above dance together to Whitney Houston. The description of this scene was another part of Thomas’s writing which struck me due to the speed at which such elements of LGBTQ culture have ingratiated themselves in some Protestant churches and ceremonies, when these same churches were vehemently anti-gay even within my lifetime. What I think is unique to the LGBTQ civil rights movement in reference to other civil rights movements throughout history is the speed at which LGBTQ rights activists have advanced their agenda legislatively and culturally as compared to the relative slowness of the civil rights movements of African Americans and women in the United States.

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