Country music musician and LGBTQ activist Kacey Musgraves says it would be good thing to “have a gay country music icon” — “especially in these small towns.”
Musgraves told the Huffington Post that gays and lesbians are “terrified of being themselves” in rural America and said she is hoping for the appearance of a “gay country music icon” for those nervous folks in the country.
Musgraves has been leading the LGBTQ cause in country music for five years, after the release of “Follow Your Arrow,” a song that has developed a following among LGBTQ country fans. The anthem tells them to “kiss lots of boys, of kiss lots of girls, if that’s what you’re into.” It cemented Musgraves’ current status as an cultural icon at gay pride events.
As the Huffington Post noted, other country music singers who have advocated for LGBTQ causes include Chely Wright and Ty Herndon — but neither are hit song producers today.
Wright told the Huffington Post that their LGBTQ declarations didn’t do much for country music’s reputation as being straight-laced in every sense of the word.
“I think that the rap that country music gets for being a bit homophobic, or a lot homophobic, we come by that honestly,” Wright said.
But as the Washington Examiner reports, conservative Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee was forced off of the Country Music Association’s board of directors after huge pushback from the music industry over the former governor’s social conservatism and Second Amendment advocacy.