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.