Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook, Pam Grady looked at the personal story inside Gay Chorus Deep South: Artistic Director Tim Seelig’s return to the world that had rejected him.
A minister of music, fired for coming out
Seelig grew up in the Baptist church; his father was vice president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as associate minister of music at Houston’s First Baptist Church until 1986, when he was fired for coming out as gay.
The tour and the film
After the 2016 election, the chorus looked for a way to build bridges. In 2017 it toured the South with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, singing for acceptance and raising money for local LGBTQ groups. David Charles Rodrigues’s documentary follows that tour, including a stop at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama, a landmark of the 1965 voting rights marches. Grady describes how Seelig, returning to Southern Baptist churches, found more openness than he expected.
“I’ve seen how music does change and heals and does miraculous things.”
— Tim Seelig, as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle
Sources
This post summarizes reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle. Details attributed to those outlets are their reporting; see the sources below.
- San Francisco Chronicle (Datebook), “SF Gay Men’s Chorus director confronts painful past in ‘Gay Chorus Deep South’” by Pam Grady, November 2019. Read the original story
