Last Saturday was my annual holiday party, but it was not the average holiday party since, earlier that day, the Senate passed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. ” The minute that happened, it was obvious that the holiday party would turn into a victory party for the community.
This is one of those historic moments in time. The idea of openly LGBT people in the military brings with it a landslide of change. Everyone who had been on the (figurative) battlefield on this issue wanted to celebrate.
This party, which has become somewhat legendary, was living up to its reputation as we introduced Mayor Nutter, to carry on the yearly tradition of singing the first holiday carol with members of the Philadelphia Voices of Pride and the Philadephia Gay Men’s Chorus. This year, to mark the crazy battle of the Christmas Village, we picked a special first song: “We Need a Little Christmas.”
Gov. and Midge Rendell followed with a truly new ecumenical number, “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” and the building had a magical feel to it as members of City Council arrived. We brought up Councilman Frank DiCicco to sing, as he’s introduced more LGBT legislation than anyone in council history.
Then my cell phone rang and it was Sen. Bob Casey who, earlier in the day, took the floor to make the case to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and, via phone, wanted to be a part of this moment with the LGBT community.
Then as Rep. Bob Brady was singing the last note of “Silent Night,” there was a commotion at the entrance and there was the hero of the day, Rep. Pat Murphy.
The applause was deafening. This was the very room where he had had his first meet-and-greet with the LGBT community and had promised that he’d be a force on the issue of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Never did we expect that he would become the congressional poster-boy for the repeal. Just two weeks ago, the legislation was DOA when Pat authored a completely new piece of legislation, the stand-alone repeal. He got it passed in Congress in record time and it was sent to the Senate, where it passed.
This was his moment, this was our hero. So in attempting to keep emotions in check, as lots of tears were flowing, we tried to keep to the tradition. People wanted to know what his favorite holiday carol was. It’s appropriately “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Pat stood as a packed house serenaded him with one of the most emotionally packed renditions of “Rudolph” I’ve ever heard. History was made last Saturday and we were honored to be standing in the room with its author, singing about the little reindeer that could.
Mark Segal is PGN publisher. He is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media, having recently received the 2010 Columnist of the Year Award from the 2,000-member Suburban Newspapers of America. He can be reached at [email protected].