Check out this ex-gay musical from the Gay Christian Network (GCN) 2007 conference. It opens with a hilarious parody of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan number The Major-General’s Song:
I am the very model of an ex-gay individual,
I’ve no more gay attractions (okay, maybe a residual)
My favorite line has to be this one:
[googlevideo]https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8132458028555523831&hl=en[/googlevideo]I think of God, not Gaynor, when I hear someone say “Gloria,”
I always stay a block away from local gay emporia
Hat-tip: Andrew Sullivan.
omg, that was hilarious. I haven’t laughed quite that hard in awhile…a little poignant as well. My favorite part was when they did the Peanuts parody of Gods voice.
I had the privilege of attending the conference where that was performed. There were times I was laughing so hard it was difficult to breathe. I’m glad to see they were able to make the performance available to the general public.
I think I wrote about this on XGW about 15 months ago.
Oops, thanks, Timothy!
I did do a quick search of the site just in case, but maybe I didn’t use the right search terms. Ah well, it was worth repeating.
He wrote about it Dave, there was no video. No reason for an oops, lol. The video provides a much better context I think as well. I had been trying to remember to put this up for the past few weeks and it kept slipping my mind. I’m not sure when Justin made it available, but I had a great time watching!
I love it!
I’ve watched it probably 4 times already… laughing the whole way through each time.
GCN is a great ministry and it’s great to see them getting some exposure,too 🙂
Thanks for the positive comments, guys! We all really enjoyed doing the show, and we’re glad you’re enjoying watching it. 🙂
For what it’s worth, we’re going to be performing it again at a fundraiser for Freedom in Christ Church in San Francisco on Sep. 20. I’m adding a new song for that performance. 😉
For those who don’t know me, I’m the executive director of GCN, and I played “Seth” in the musical. And no, I don’t act like that in real life. But it was a fun character to write and to play!
–Justin
I would love to have a soundtrack to this. Especially the first song.
I watched the whole thing, it was great. I recognized most of those songs. Were they all parodies of other famous musical numbers? What was the last one parodying? I liked that song. You did a great job re-writing the lyrics to fit those famous numbers.
Hey Emily — The last song was a parody of the finale from the musical, “Wicked.” The title of the song is “Defying Gravity.”
It’s FAGNANIMOUS! That was FAGTASTIC!!! And the guy who played the Alan Chambers take-off Bernard , was Fagalicious!
Justin / Seth, when you play it in SF, will there be costumes? I may have to fly up and give YOU my check personally. Corey can really belt it out. You were all three just great. Thanks for the laughs and the cultural uplift. 🙂
DB
Devlin – Thanks! And yes, Seth’s outfit will definitely be more outrageous in SF. (There were fun plans for his costume that fell through for the original performance, so we’re really upping the ante this next time around.) Brad (“Bernard”) and Kennan (“Cory”) are both fantastic and so great to work with. And Cory’s story is somewhat autobiographical for me (except that my mom is nothing like his mom) so the character of Brad is really representative of my own experiences with the ex-gay movement.
Nigel – We don’t have a soundtrack yet, but who knows… LOL!
The songs are all spoofs of existing showtunes. The originals were, in order:
“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from The Pirates of Penzance
“Giants in the Sky” from Into the Woods
“Popular” from Wicked
“Tomorrow” from Annie
“One Day More” from Les Miserables
“Oklahoma” from Oklahoma
“If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof
“Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid
“Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast
“My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music
“Seasons of Love” from Rent
“Defying Gravity” from Wicked
my favorite line:
Gay guy: Didn’t I see you on gay.com last night?
Ex-gay guy: I was just there to use the bathroom.
I agree Gordo, pathetically comically precious. Oh — boys and their bathrooms. I think they could add a line shot by Seth …. ‘oh really, wide stance?’ w/ Bernard quaking standing in a wide stance arms over chest, leaving him dangling to react. Might as well jam in as many hypocritical repubes in one fell swoop.
Thanks Seth, sounds great. Would love to see this done to the nines, this could go far!
Best ever to ya,
DB
For a moment before watching this i really thought that gay christian network was on the same indoctrinating basis as say, a mother that prohibts their children(not matter the age)from doing, seeing or hearing X or Y in order to shield them from stumbling and straying from the ‘right path’.(Like GCN’s scrictly moderated forums).Kinda like a bubble, ironically Justin says that it does NOT want to make a bubble, in his first youtube video at “https://www.youtube.com/gaychristiannetwork“.
As well intentioned as the censorship is, i barely go to gaychristiannetwork to look for answers on different disturbing(for me) issues. Or even less, try and get a reaction.
They ban issues that negatively/conflictingly impact their bubble.. err, stance. Like peadophilia and ex-gays. And i have no issue with their private censorship. Yet, guess it would only be fair to those struggling so they dont visit GCN first… it would be… in the long run, sad, imo. Its no different from christian sites and youtube preachers ‘outreaching’ whilst dismissing/censoring any pro-gay arguments simply because its ‘detrimental’.
You totally should realease a soundtrack, or at least some of the songs because they are really really catchy. Also, I laughed my ass off at the Annie song parody…and the RENT song parody I thought I was going to die from laughter.
I don’t usualy post here (It’s alway good reading, though), but I just wanted to say that I really, really enjoyed that. Clicked on it just to see what it was, and ended up watching the whole thing. Now, I’m trying to decide if I have enough time to watch it a second time — lol.
OH MY GOSH….
Has anyone sent Sally Kern a link to her state song turned Hoooooooooomosexual???
too too funny.
Thanks again, everyone! We love hearing your feedback! Had we only known it was going to get this kind of reaction, we would have done more to get a better-quality video!
Of course, we’re a bit limited in what we can do because of copyrights, but it’s parody, so we have at least a little leeway. 🙂
And Joel, so sorry you’ve had a bad experience on our website. We do our best to create a safe and welcoming environment for everyone, but with 8,000+ members and such a large percentage of youth, it’s always a balancing act. Moderate too much and people accuse you of being draconian. Moderate too little and the youngest, shyest, or most sensitive people get out-shouted and feel unsafe. We try really hard to keep a happy medium, but there’s always room for improvement! I’m just glad we’re not the only game in town!
Back on the subject of the musical, if anyone has ideas of things we can (legally) do with the show, feel free to contact me. I’m all ears! 🙂
–Justin
P.S. LOL @ Pam Ferguson!
W/e justin, at any rate… ur parody is still creative and very witty. LOVED IT :). I even considered headin to the conference next time, just to see something equally entertaining and to get a first person experience of the gay christian life. Hear em testimonies which are always intriguing.
Moderated: removed offensive reference.
Oh my! I don’t know how those of you who saw this live survived! I had to pause so many times to catch my breath. This has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. Kudos! Take it on tour!!!!
My favorite: ‘Your Son Will Come Out Tomorrow’.
🙂
I couldn’t stop laughing! I was headed out the door when I started watching this and ended up skipping my meeting and watching the entire performance… TWICE!
It’s hilarious because it’s so true! This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing this last year going to exodus conferences and LGBT groups. I loved the ending because that’s the place I’m coming to as well. It feels so good to know other Christians have been down this road before!
Wow, that was really cool, and I’m excited to know that this ministry exists; we could really use something like this out here in Salt Lake City. I go to a wonderful church, but they refuse to let me or my b.f into any kind of service there for the simple fact we’re gay and together. God’s laid it on my heart most of my life to be involved in ministry work, and I would love the chance.