Did Mormon Tabernacle Choir send message of support to Pride Festival?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The choice of music in Sunday's edition of "Music and the Spoken Word" seemed somewhat startling to some people.

As the Gay Pride Parade was gearing up a few blocks away, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." That song, from "The Wizard of Oz," has become a gay anthem over the years.

And at least a few locals were wondering if there was some kind of subtext to the song choice. If the MoTabs were sending a message of support.

That is, of course, incredibly unlikely. OK, it's impossible.

So it had to be a fluke, right? Or was it, perhaps, providence?

Well, one local observed, "Since there's no way that anyone did this deliberately, but it's also extremely implausible that it's pure coincidence, I guess we have to conclude that the person behind this little bit of subversive outreach was God."