Are You a Hypocrite If You Dance to YMCA at the Ballpark?

I'm covering the Greensboro Grasshoppers game Sunday night and I see something I've never seen before. The game is scheduled for a 5:00 PM start and they opt not to start the game. There's rain in the forecast and they decide to pull the tarp on the field and have a rain delay even though there is no rain! It's now an hour later, there still has been no rain and we're still in a rain delay.

It's the prerogative of the home team when to start the game and they can control action until the first pitch. After that it's up to the discretion of the umpires. Saturday night's game was called after five innings due to rain and perhaps they did not want to repeat that scenario.

Anyway, I told you that story so I could tell you this story.

During the "rain delay" they played a song that has become a ball park staple over the years: the Village People's YMCA. It never ceases to amaze me the response the song gets at the ballpark.

The Grasshoppers play the song at each home game and the mascots get on top of the dugouts and dance along. Inevitably, people from the crowd will get up and do the infamous letter pantomime. The people who dance or spell out the letters to YMCA cross all racial, gender and age lines. You are just as likely to see a 4-year-old girl, or a middle age guy or an old lady up there acting the song out.

I just don't get it.

Now, I guess I should mention that when this song came out in the late 1970s, we used to beat up people who listened to it. This song came out in the middle of the rock-disco "wars" of the era and not only was this song disco but it was the gayest song around. Our response whenever we heard this song was to mockingly sing - Why are you gay? instead of YMCA.

Now, in hindsight, I am embarrassed about my homophobic past. But I make no apologies for hating this song. I cringe every time I hear it played.

But if people like it I'm okay with that. I just don't want people to be hypocrites about it. If you like this song, and you get up and do the letters - don't turn around and tell me that you're against gay marriage.

That's because YMCA is a song that celebrates the gay lifestyle. If you get up and celebrate when YMCA comes on then you, too, are celebrating homosexuality in all of its glory.

You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
They have everything For young men to enjoy.
You can hang out with all the boys.

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
You can get yourself clean
You can have a good meal
You can do whatever you feel.

Still not convinced? Here's what a couple members of the group told Spin magazine about the song:

Randy Jones (cowboy): "When I moved to New York in 1975, I joined the McBurney YMCA on 23rd Street. I took Jacques (Morali) there three or four times in 1977, and he loved it. He was fascinated by a place where a person could work out with weights, play basketball, swim, take classes, and get a room. Plus, with Jacques being gay, I had a lot of friends I worked out with who were in the adult-film industry, and he was impressed by meeting people he had seen in the videos and magazines. Those visits with me planted a seed in him, and that's how he got the idea for "Y.M.C.A." - by literally going to the YMCA."

David Hodo (construction worker): "'Y.M.C.A.' certainly has a gay origin. That's what Jacques was thinking when he wrote it, because our first album [1977's Village People] was possibly the gayest album ever. I mean, look at us. We were a gay group. So was the song written to celebrate gay men at the YMCA? Yes. Absolutely. And gay people love it."

So, I want you God-fearing, homosexual-hating people to stop going bananas when they play this song. Either that or stop going on about what an abomination gays are and how it undermines the sanctity of marriage to have two people of the same sex participate in a wedding ceremony.

As for me, I no longer care who people find attractive, want to sleep with and whom they want to spend the rest of their days. Whatever gets you through the night is all right.

And on general principle, I have no problem with a song that celebrates the gay lifestyle. Go ahead and blast Barry Ingle, K.D. Lang or Melissa Etheridge, I won't complain a bit.

But YMCA is just a rotten bubble gum song and I'll continue to hate it and the people who dance to it. I will gladly contribute money to any cause that will help the song just go away.