Hijacking "Hamilton": How a Church Tried to Re-Write "Hamilton" Into an Anti-LGBTQIA2S+ Diatribe

I have what is commonly referred to as the Broadway gay gene, and I love on and off-Broadway musicals and plays. I enjoyed performing in many theater productions when I was in elementary school, junior high, high school, and college, along with some time spent in community theater. 

And I like the Broadway musical "Hamilton" a lot. I've seen it once in person, as well as the Disney+ version, and look forward to seeing it again, live, in the years to come.

Apparently, the people at The Door Church, a non-denominational evangelical church in McAllen, TX, also liked it. They liked it so much that they not only performed some of the songs (the show is currently not licensed for community theaters or high schools to use the material) and followed much of the plot of the musical, except with a twist: Alexander Hamilton becomes a convert to Christianity and is "born again." That wasn't in the original production, but it was in the production in McAllen, TX. In The Door Church's production, the figure of Eliza Schuyler evangelizes Alexander, a twist that was never in the original musical. Eventually, Alexander "receives the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal savior" and is saved, according to this new translation or version or whatever we want to call it.

Then, at the end of the production, there is an "altar call" of sorts, in which there is a post-show sermon, with the pastor, Victor Lopez, calling homosexuality a "struggle" on a par with drug addiction and divorce. By the way, all three can be stopped, if you, the person who is gay, addicted to drugs, or divorced, chooses to stop any of the above. Yes, once again, being LGBTQIA2S+ is demonized in a church setting.

That wasn't quite the message of the original production of "Hamilton" on Broadway. Far from it.

And now may the copyright lawsuit come quickly. 

Here's a link to this story: https://www.queerty.com/homophobic-churchs-illegal-hamilton-show-offensive-werent-damn-funny-20220808

This latest cultural misstep neither helps the Church universal in the eyes of LGBTQIA2S+ people, nor do LGBTQIA2S+ people want to be part of the discrimination going on at such churches as The Door Church. Mind you: there are closeted LGBTQIA2S+ at all of these non-denominational churches, and none of these kinds of messages or messengers of the Gospel helping people live the life they were created to live. While this story is funny in some ways, it is painful, because lives are going to be impacted by such mis-representation of truth.

It is right to call out such heinous and evil acts that will hurt people in the short and long run.

Please share this story with others.

May it be so.

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