Obituary
First United States Gay Ambassador James C. Hormel dies at 88
“Jim Hormel was a barrier-breaking public servant, champion for LGBTQ equality, and cherished friend who will be dearly missed.”
SAN FRANCISCO – The first openly gay diplomat appointed as the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, has died at 88. James C. Hormel, heir to the Hormel meatpacking fortune, was a longtime philanthropist who parlayed his financial interests and contributions as a longtime Democratic Party activist and donor, into actively pursuing LGBTQ+ equality and civil rights.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Ambassador Jim Hormel. Jim devoted his life to advancing the rights and dignity of all people, and in his trailblazing service in the diplomatic corps, he represented the United States with honor and brought us closer to living out the meaning of a more perfect union,” former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a joint statement. “We will always be grateful for his courageous and principled example, as well as the kindness and support he gave us over so many years. Our thoughts are with his family and all who loved him.”
Hormel’s work as an openly gay supporter for equality led to his being one of the founders of the Human Rights Campaign Fund along with fellow native Minnesotan Steve Endean. In 1995 the organization was renamed the Human Rights Campaign.
A long time San Franciscan, Hormel served as a member of the board of directors of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the American Foundation for AIDS Research. He also founded and funded the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center located at the San Francisco Public Library.
Two notable national Democratic Party political figures and fellow San Franciscans, U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reflected on Hormel’s long service.
Sen. Feinstein’s statement read in part, “San Francisco lost a great friend today. A philanthropist, civil rights pioneer and loving spouse and father, James Hormel lived an extraordinary life and will be deeply missed by many, Feinstein said. I had the pleasure of working closely with him on several issues, most notably on the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Tapped to be the ambassador to Luxembourg by President Clinton in 1997, he was the first openly gay person to serve as an ambassador. While his nomination was controversial at the time, his service was distinguished and helped advance LGBTQ rights both at home and abroad.”
House Speaker Pelosi released a statement praising Ambassador Hormel’s commitment to advancing LGBTQ+ Equality rights.
“Jim Hormel was a barrier-breaking public servant, champion for LGBTQ equality, and cherished friend who will be dearly missed in San Francisco, in our nation and around the world. Jim Hormel made history as the first openly gay U.S. ambassador, showing the world how the voices of LGBTQ Americans are integral to foreign policy, and paving the way for a new generation of leaders,” said Pelosi. “With his gentle yet powerful voice and undaunted determination, Jim made it his mission to fight for dignity and equality for all. Paul and I are heartbroken at this tremendous loss, and hope it is a comfort to his husband, Michael, and his children Alison, Anne, Elizabeth, James Jr. and Sarah, that Jim’s extraordinary life continues to serve as a beacon of hope and promise for LGBTQ children across our country and around the world.”
Born at the height of the Great Depression in January of 1933, Hormel, the grandson of Hormel Foods founder George A. Hormel, earned his bachelor of Arts Degree from Swarthmore College in suburban Philadelphia and later a law degree from University of Chicago Law School. He later served as the school’s Dean of Students and Director of Admissions.
Hormel’s Democratic Party activism coupled with his dedicated efforts to advance the cause of LGBTQ equality led to a chance dinner conversation in 1992 with then candidate Bill Clinton’s campaign treasurer, Bob Farmer.
Cynthia Laird, the editor of The Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s LGBTQ newspaper noted Hormel’s recounting that conversation which was originally published in B.A.R. in 2016;
Over dinner, Farmer suggested to Mr. Hormel that he seek a presidential appointment as an ambassador.
“I was quite surprised when he brought up the idea,” said Mr. Hormel, noting that over 60% of such positions are held by career employees who have come up through the ranks in the Foreign Service.
The appointment did not happen easily, Mr. Hormel recalled.
In fact, it wasn’t until five years after that dinner that Clinton nominated Mr. Hormel for the job. During that period, recalled Mr. Hormel, he made “dozens of visits and hundreds of phone calls” to keep his name in consideration.
Mr. Hormel said he was persistent because, if appointed, “I would break a ceiling and make it easier for gay people to serve at the highest levels of government.”
Initially, Hormel was considered for an ambassadorship to Fiji by the Clinton White House, but according to published accounts in the Washington Blade, D.C.’s LGBTQ newspaper and the Washington Post in December of 1994, his name was withdrawn from consideration in part due to objections from conservatives in both parties on Capitol Hill and the government of Fiji itself.
The Washington Blade’s Lou Chibbaro reported; “The action on Hormel also comes after members of the moderate and conservative wings of the Democratic Party have said the stunning defeat last month of Democratic members of Congress was due, in part, to Clinton’s support for Gay civil rights in general and Gays in the military in particular.“
Fijian officials had protested in part because same-sex intimate sexual relations were a crime punishable by long prison sentences and Hormel’s status as an openly gay man ran counter to the principles of “Fijian Culture” they claimed.
“Hormel’s nomination as ambassador to Fiji would be “dead in the water,” said one source familiar with the controversy, who spoke on condition of anonymity,” the Blade reported. “The source said Helms made it clear through intermediaries that he would bottle up Hormel’s nomination in committee.
The Blade also reported that; “The only reason Jim Hormel did not get the job was because he is Gay,” said one Gay activist leader, who spoke on condition that he not be identified.”
The Clinton Administration according to the Washington Post then explored another appointment for Hormel that would not require Senate confirmation. One option under consideration, the Post reported, was a position in a delegation to an international conference on social justice issues in Copenhagen. Another possibility, the Post said, was participation by Hormel in the United Nations commission on human rights in Geneva.
President Clinton ultimately named Hormel as a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1995, and in 1996 Hormel was named an alternate U.S. representative at the United Nations General Assembly.
The following October of 1997, the president nominated Hormel as his choice to be the U.S. Ambassador to the principality of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. While the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination with the exceptions of Republican conservative Senators Jesse Helms and John Ashcroft opposed, the battle in the Senate which got progressively uglier as contentious portions of Hormel’s philanthropic and activist work were derided by more conservative Republicans and the powerful political foes of LGBTQ+ equality rights.
Those groups included the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designated extremist anti-LGBTQ hate groups, the Washington D.C. based Family Research Council and the Orange County, California based Traditional Values Coalition Christian organization founded by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon to oppose LGBTQ+ rights.
In a Wikimedia entry on Hormel it notes that FRC and TVC both:
- Labelled Hormel as being pro-pornography, asserting that Hormel would be rejected in the largely Roman Catholic Luxembourg. It was later observed that much of the same material could also be found in the Library of Congress.
- The FRC distributed video tapes of a television interview with Hormel at the 1996 San Francisco Pride parade in which Hormel laughed at a joke about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of men who dress in drag as nuns to mock religious conventions, as they passed by. The Catholic League took this as an indication of approval of what they characterized as an anti-Catholic group. In a meeting with Tim Hutchinson, Hormel declined to repudiate the Sisters. In an interview years later, Hormel objected to the idea that the video clip showed that he approved of the group and that he was anti-Catholic.
- It was revealed that Hormel had contributed $12,000 to fund the production of the It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, a video aimed at teaching tolerance of homosexuality to grade-school students. This especially inflamed Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, who was portrayed unflatteringly in the film. Smith contended that he opposed Hormel not because he was gay but because of his “advocacy of the gay lifestyle”.
Ultimately after Republicans were successful in stalling Hormel’s nomination, preventing a vote which was orchestrated by then Senate Majority Leader, Mississippi Republican U.S. Senator Trent Lott, President Clinton in May of 1999 in a recess appointment made Hormel the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg.
The Washington Post reported, “Bypassing Senate confirmation, President Clinton moved yesterday to directly install gay San Francisco businessman James C. Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg.
The president invoked a provision of the Constitution allowing him to make such appointments during a congressional recess. Hormel, who will become the first openly gay U.S. ambassador, can serve in the post through the end of 2000.
The “recess appointment” drew criticism from a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and conservative groups but was praised by gay rights activists.
“The denial of a confirmation vote by the Senate leadership, a vote he would have easily won, was nothing more than anti-gay discrimination,” said Elizabeth Birch of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay and lesbian political group to the Washington Post.
The Post also reported that Clinton’s recess appointment of Hormel was criticized by Lott spokesman John Czwartacki who said it was “a slap in the face,” particularly to Catholics.
Czwartacki cited what he said were Hormel’s links with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — drag queens who dress as nuns.
White House spokesman Barry Toiv said Hormel does not support “any such group. The idea . . . is outrageous and is false.”
The Family Research Council claimed that Hormel’s appointment was strictly to “advance the gay agenda.” on what the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group deemed a “a government-sanctioned platform.”
Hormel went on to serve as ambassador until the inaugural of President George W. Bush on January 20, 2001.
After his service as ambassador Hormel returned to his philanthropic work moving back to the City by the Bay where he was honored in 2010, with a lifetime achievement grand marshal for the San Francisco Pride parade.
Hormel also continued his lifelong advocacy work and as an elder statesmen in the Democratic Party. When then President-elect Joe Biden announced his choice of nominating openly out Pete Buttigieg as U. S. Secretary of Transportation, the Washington Blade’s White House reporter Chris Johnson reported, “Buttigieg, who made history as a gay Democratic candidate in the 2020 primary said at the time his career aspiration was to become an airline pilot and “was a long way from coming out, even to myself,” but gained knowledge from Hormel’s story.”
The Blade also reported; “I learned about some of the limits that exist in this country when it comes to who is allowed to belong, and just as important, I saw how those limits could be challenged,” Buttigieg said. “So, two decades later, I can’t help but think of a 17-year-old who might be watching right now, someone who wonders whether and where they belong in the world, or even in their own family, and I’m thinking about the message today’s announcement is sending to them.”
Hormel, in an email to the Blade the day after Buttigieg praised him, was able to return the favor by offering support.
“I enthusiastically support the nomination of Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation and will acknowledge him as the first openly LGBTQ member of the presidential Cabinet,” Hormel said.
“Today we mourn the loss of a true titan in our LGBTQ+ movement — a trailblazer, a mentor and a friend to all those who sought his counsel during his decades of leadership and advocacy. Ambassador James Hormel defined our community’s resilience — representing our nation with honor and distinction in the face of vile hate and discrimination,” Executive Director of Equality California’s Rick Chavez Zbur said in a statement. “In the years since his diplomatic service, Jim has been unyieldingly generous with his time and his resources, working tirelessly to create a world that is healthy, just and fully equal for all LGBTQ+ people.
“It is true that we stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. I am forever grateful for the wisdom and guidance that Jim shared with me and Equality California over the past 25 years, and I am confident that generations of LGBTQ+ diplomats, advocates and community leaders will benefit from his life’s work. I know that we will continue to see the immeasurable impact of his contributions on the faces of children who dream of walking the world’s greatest halls of power without worry that who they are or whom they love could ever limit their potential.”
Hormel is survived by his husband Michael and his children Alison, Anne, Elizabeth, James Jr. and Sarah.
Additional reporting from Lou Chibbaro, Chris Johnson, The Bay Area Reporter, and The Washington Post.
Obituary
Beloved D.C. ‘Old Catholic’ Bishop Charles Braun dies at 86
Gay church leader offered spiritual support to LGBTQ community
The Rt. Rev. Charles “Charlie” Braun, who served since 2001 as Bishop of the D.C.-based Inclusive Catholic Diocese of the Chesapeake Bay and as founding minister at the affiliated LGBTQ supportive St. John’s Inclusive Catholic Community of D.C., passed away Aug. 3 at the age of 86.
Write-ups about Braun’s life and legacy as a progressive religious leader report that the Inclusive Catholic Diocese of the Chesapeake Bay and St. John’s Inclusive Catholic Community are part of the “Old Catholic” movement, which is a partial break-away church from the Roman Catholic Church.
“St. John’s parish was founded with and continues with the special calling to reach those who had been hurt by other church denominations,” a statement on the St. John’s website says.
“St. John’s welcomes all without exception, with particular care for members of the LGBTQIA+ community who have suffered abuse and rejection elsewhere, offering them contemporary scriptural and theological guidance grounded in an ancient faith tradition made to work in the 21st century,” the website statement says.
It notes that until the time of his passing, Braun, among other things, performed the St. John’s Inclusive Catholic Community’s weekly Sunday mass at its headquarters location at 3417 14th St., N.W. in the city’s Columbia Heights neighborhood. The location is in a converted townhouse owned and operated by the LGBTQ supportive Dandelion Collective, which provides support for the local LGBTQ community.
Rev. Stephen F. Scott, the current pastor at the D.C. St. John’s Catholic Community, said Braun is a native of Bucks County, Pa., and studied to become a priest at D.C.’s Catholic University’s Marist House seminary, where he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in the 1960s.
Scott told the Washington Blade that Braun was then assigned as a parish priest at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Wheeling, W.Va. The St. John’s Catholic Community website write-up says Braun directed that church’s choir “and formed friendships that lasted lifetimes.”
The website write-up continues, “Bishop Charlie left the Roman Catholic priesthood but never left ministry. He found a new spiritual home in the Old Catholic movement, where he was consecrated a bishop and became a beloved unapologetic voice for its theology and tradition.”
It says he began his service as Bishop of the D.C.-based Inclusive Catholic Diocese of the Chesapeake Bay in October 2001 and later founded the St. John’s Inclusive Catholic Community, both of which he led until the time of his passing.
“In Washington, D.C. Bishop Charlie became especially well known and cherished within the LGBTQ+ community, offering compassionate pastoral presence, ordaining and mentoring candidates for ministry, and reminding all who knew him that ministry does not end when circumstances change – it simply takes new forms,” the website statement says.
Rev. Scott confirmed reports by people in the LGBTQ community who knew Braun and who told the Blade the man they knew as Bishop Charlie visited LGBTQ supportive bars and restaurants in D.C., including the Dupont Circle area, to perform religious services and offer spiritual support for LGBTQ people.
“Charlie spoke so much about the importance of loving and welcoming, especially gays, lesbians, transgender Catholics and Christians and meeting them where they were,” Scott said. “So not expecting people to come to a full-on church building, he would go in his evenings and enjoy a drink or have a meal, whether it was Dupont Italian Kitchen, Floriana, or any of the neighborhood gathering places in the queer community,” Scott told the Blade.
“If there was a couple that would come to talk to him and wanted to get married, he would arrange with the couple to have the ceremony at their venue of choice,” according to Scott. “He would have weddings, confirmations, baptisms at those locations because that’s where the community felt comfortable.”
A Mass of Christian Burial was held for Bishop Charles ‘Charlie’ Braun on Saturday, Aug. 22, at the LGBTQ supportive Lutheran Church of the Reformation located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Scott said the church was selected because it offered a larger space for the service than the St. John’s Inclusive Catholic Community location in Columbia Heights.
Actor Tim Curry died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Curry has a career spanning decades that included roles on the stage and screen. With an unmistakable voice, he also leaves behind a large body of voice work in animated features and video games. Curry is perhaps best remembered by LGBTQ fans for his performances in camp classics, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Clue.”
“Rocky Horror” (1975) became an underground cultural phenomenon of gender-bending joy.
To this day, fans meet at late night movie theaters dressed in costumes of their favorite characters, including as Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Such gatherings gave permission for fans to play with gender expression, which could be particularly important for LGBTQ fans in more repressive times and places.
“… It became a gathering point for LGBTQ+ people. For punks, for goths, for anyone who felt marginalized or othered by society,” screenwriter, producer, and filmmaker Michael Varrati told the Washington Blade in September 2025 interview on “Rocky Horror”‘s lasting legacy. “When you walked through those theater doors, you belonged, and everybody accepted you, and the thing that made you feel like a freak was celebrated.”
Curry was also known for roles under heavy prosthetics, such as Pennywise the murderous clown in Stephen King’s “It,” or as the demon-horned Darkness in “Legend.” Always shining through any mask was Curry’s signature mischievous voice.
With the passing of Dolly Parton, a fellow LGBTQ icon, one can expect many tributes to Curry and Parton at drag shows and music events at LGBTQ venues in the coming nights.
Pitchers DC (2317 18th St., N.W.) will have a “Dolly + Tim Tribute” with show tunes on Sunday from 2-8 p.m. JR.’s Bar (1519 17th St., N.W.) has announced it will have a show tunes night “honoring Dolly & Tim” on Monday starting at 9 p.m.
Obituary
Music icon and dear LGBTQ friend Dolly Parton remembered
‘Queen of Country’ died on Tuesday in Nashville
I don’t want to say goodbye.
To be honest, my first impression of music icon Dolly Parton was similar to the scathing look the demur Jane Fonda gave the boss’s secretary in one of my favorite funny feminist films ever, “9 to 5.”
Fonda’s aghast up-and-down scrutiny was pure unspoken tsk tsk condescension toward this bubbly dumb-blond wigged white trash colleague — until she looked down at her own flat chest. For a moment, Fonda suggested a hint of envy, at which we laughed. I felt a sigh of relief at not having to carry around all the weight Dolly Parton’s boobs implied.
Those boobs, those big blond country-western wigs, and her seemingly irrepressible humor were as much a part of Dolly Parton’s brand as was her incomparable voice and the songs she wrote that moved generations. In 1974, I longed to love someone as much as Dolly loved the person for whom she wrote her goodbye, “I Will Always Love You.”
Surely, someone with that big a heart was bigger than the tight bodice society forced innovative go-getters like Dolly Parton to squeeze into.
In fact, Parton’s difficult backstory of childhood poverty in Sevierville, Tenn., living in a cabin with no running water and 11 siblings — and an ambition infused with a love-your-neighbor Christian upbringing — created a depth of character that used smarts, ingenuity and humor to thwart her stereotype-blinded detractors.
“Well, I graduated [high school] on a Friday night and headed out on a Saturday morning,” Parton told ABC News’s Robin Roberts in an extensive interview in advance of the 2019 CMA Awards. “As I make jokes about it with my matching luggage, those four paper bags from the same grocery store. I thought, well, I can’t be any poorer than I already am, and I’m a girl. I’ll find some boy that’ll take me to Shoney’s … I thought I’m not going to go hungry.”
Like Billie Jean King and other female professionals, Dolly Parton fought hard to get paid what she was worth.
“It’s not all about money,” she said. “I count my blessings more than I count my money, but I need to count my money, too.”
Tough times taught her how to be tough and funny. “Well, I don’t think people can live in this world without going through times like that,” Parton told Roberts. “People always look at me; they always say, ‘Oh, you just always seem to be so happy.’ I said, ‘That’s the Botox.’ No, but seriously, I’m a very sensitive person. I feel everything to the core.”
That’s what makes her famous 1977 interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters so compelling. Walters had become infamous for making her interview subjects cry after asking tough, prying, sometimes rude questions that she said her audience wanted answered.
“You don’t have to look like this; you’re very beautiful. You don’t have to wear the blonde wigs; you don’t have to wear the extreme clothes, right?” Walters asked the brightly dressed Parton.
Parton delivered a master class in grace and class.
“It’s certainly a choice,” Parton replied. “I don’t like to be like everybody else. I’ve often made the statement that I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do.”
Chuckling yet? Parton wanted attention, then she could dazzle them with talent. “Once they got past the shock of the ridiculous way I looked, then they would see there’s parts of me to be appreciated. I’m very real where it counts … and that’s inside,” Dolly Parton told Barbara Walters. “Show business is a money-making joke, and I just always like telling jokes.”
Walters then asked Parton — the beloved star with 19 studio albums and a slew of awards won over a decade in the male-dominated music business: “Do you ever feel like you’re a joke, that people make fun of you?”
Parton was the personification of composure.
“I know they make fun of me. But actually, all these years people have thought the joke was on me, but it’s actually been on the public. I know exactly what I’m doing, and I can change it at any time. I make more jokes about myself than anybody,” Parton said.
“I am sure of myself as a person. I am sure of my talent. I’m sure of my love for life,” Parton said. “And I’m very content. I like the kind of person that I am. So I can afford to piddle around and do-diddle around with make-up and clothes and stuff. Because I am secure with myself.”
Game, set, match to Parton.
In another ABC interview in 2012, Parton expanded on that over-the-top signature style which she adopted after seeing the town tramp.
“There was this woman, we won’t call her names, but she was beautiful,” she told ABC News Nightline. “I had never seen anybody, you know, with the yellow hair all piled up and the red lipstick and the rouge and the high-heeled shoes, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to look like.’”
As the image implies, there were constant rumors that she was secretly involved with any male within inches — as well as a secret lesbian life with her oldest childhood pal, Judy Ogle. She denied the rumor — she was married to Carl Dean for 58 years. He died in March 2025.
Dolly Parton died peacefully on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, at the age of 80 in Nashville after a “brief battle with cancer,” her team wrote in a statement to People.
“Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope, and integrity into everything she touched. Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand,” they wrote.
“Whether it be the hundreds of millions of books donated through her invaluable Imagination Library or funding research that helped create a lifesaving vaccine used around the world, Dolly’s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact. After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, surrounded by loved ones,” the statement concluded.
The music world is in mourning. And news outlets are overflowing with tributes. Few of them mention us. In fact, one note of criticism for some is a precise example of that “unconditional love for all people” her team talked about.
“The ’80s — a decade she kicked off in grand fashion with the working woman’s anthem ‘9 to 5’ — brought Parton some of her greatest mainstream success, but the climate of the times also conspired to reduce her to a punchline and a caricature: The self-made country-pop queen who had pulled herself up by her bra straps. She played along, as an act of self-preservation, but it is a consolation to know that she lived long enough for her reputation as a songwriter to rise considerably in the 21st century,” Lindsay Zoladz wrote in her “appraisal” of Dolly Parton, who “had the voice, and concerns, of an Earth Angel” for the New York Times.
Damn, bitch! Have you never even seen a Dolly Parton drag queen? There’s almost a cottage industry devoted to Dolly. And Dolly knew — and loved it! She even participated in a Dolly Parton drag contest at a gay LA bar — which she lost!
“They had a bunch of Chers and Dollys that year, so I just over-exaggerated — made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything,” Parton laughingly told ABC News Nightline. “All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So I just got in the line, and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy … but I got the least applause.”
Dolly Parton lost the Dolly Parton look-alike contest in an LA gay bar! But she hasn’t lost the ineffable connection to her fans — whom she understood, felt, and fought for — including protecting “Gay Day” at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
“When it first started, there were people giving us threats; I still get threats,” Parton told ABC News. “But like I said, I’m in business. I just don’t feel like I have to explain myself. I love everybody.”
That’s what I saw when Dolly Parton arrived and smiled through an onslaught of paparazzi and gay fanboys at an APLA Commitment to Life event.
Oddly though, as a reporter, my fixation was on Parton’s “date,” her gay manager Sandy Gallin, who seemed to rarely show up publicly with his supposed posse, controversially dubbed the “Velvet Gay Mafia.”
The late gay AIDS advocate Dana Miller, who was on the APLA board, wrote a piece for In Los Angeles Magazine about the Four Warriors of AIDS fundraising: David Geffen, Barry Diller, Sandy Gallin, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
“It was the early ’90s, and we were in the second decade of AIDS with absolutely no hope in sight,” Miller wrote. “It was then I discovered the warriors, and it was amazing. Gay and straight, they were the ones who for almost a decade came together in living rooms and storefronts to provide what our government didn’t. My list of warriors is long, yet this is the tale of four particular individuals who, for years, I closely watched working behind the scenes to make a difference in the quality of life of men, women, and children they would never know.”
After Gallin died in 2017 at age 76, columnist Billy Masters wrote a tribute in the Los Angeles Blade that expanded on that theme – and included a section on Dolly Parton, with whom he formed Sandollar Productions in 1985. Sandollar Productions, with Howard Rosenman, produced the 1990 Oscar winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” that raised global awareness about AIDS.
“While Gallin’s client list was vast and varied, he especially loved his divas. A special place in his heart was reserved solely for Dolly Parton. The two met after Dolly asked singer Mac Davis who should help with her career. Davis said, ‘You should talk to Sandy Gallin — he’s my manager.’ Sandy had one goal — to make Dolly a mainstream star. The first thing he did was set up a recording session for the song ‘Here You Come Again,’”Masters wrote.
“Dolly was hesitant. She said, ‘A monkey could sing this song and have a hit with it.’ She was very nervous that it would turn off the country market, which she was very loyal to.’ Gallin made a deal with her — if the song wasn’t No. 1 on the pop charts AND the country charts, he’d never get involved in her musical decisions again. Dolly took the deal — and lost,” Masters wrote. “From then on, she and Sandy were inseparable. They considered each other beyond best friends and almost soul mates. ‘My husband didn’t love to travel, and Sandy was gay, and he did,’ said Dolly.”
Dolly Parton also talked about Gallin in an interview with Apple Music Country’s Proud Radio: “Sandy and I just clicked like nobody’s business,” Parton told host Hunter Kelly. “He was like my best gay bud. … We [went to] Studio 54. We’d sit on the couch and watch all the craziness. But we were all involved in the fun of it, and it was great.”
“I really owe him so much,” Parton added.
But, contrary to what Dolly Parton sings in “9 to 5,” it’s not all taking and no giving. Dolly Parton told the KKK that she welcomes gay people to Dollywood. And in 1991, when gay men were dying of AIDS by the thousands, and some Southern Christian leaders said AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality, Dolly Parton wrote and sang one of the first country songs to include “gay” and Christianity: “Some are preachers, some are gay … But not a one is turned away when it’s family.”
She later got an Oscar nod for “Travelin’ Thru,” a song for the transgender film “Transamerica.”
In 2023, after her home state of Tennessee passed anti-trans and anti-drag laws, Parton said she knew how deeply it hurt LGBTQ people, including in her own family and life, to be attacked for who they are.
“I know and love them all, and I do not judge,” she said. “They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.”
By the end of “9 to 5,” I realized that I had been the judgmental one with stereotype-blinders. I enjoyed learning how to get bold things done while expressing yourself with authentic joy. But unfortunately the theme and song are still applicable today.
Thank you, Dolly Parton.
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