Justice Through Music joins band Op-Critical for song “Prop 8” to support marriage equality

Video compares fight for gay marriage to past civil rights struggles

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Justice Through Music, www.jtmp.org, a national non profit that works with famous bands to bring attention to important social issues, teamed up the band Op-Critical in a music video called “Prop 8” to oppose the California referendum that was used to overturn the state’s gay marriage law. The video, shown above, looks at the struggle for marriage equality through the lens of past struggles for women’s rights, civil rights and voting rights.

Op-Critical’s Storm wrote the tune in a 1930’s Delta Blues style and recorded it on a 1937 National resonator steel guitar. The video was filmed with Storm on a porch, sitting in a rocking chair playing the steel guitar like so many well known blues artists. “The battle for marriage equality is historic in the same way as past civil rights struggles,” he said. “The best way for us to portray that was by channeling past blues masters who sang with conviction about the struggles they were seeing during their lifetimes. The next generation will look back on the gay rights battles with the same dismay we now look at previous civil rights battles. It takes a while for people prejudices to be overcome but they always are. We are hopeful that this video will help and give people a real perspective on what is occurring rather than seeing this as simply a matter of politics or religion.”

Op-Critical has offered the tune for download on its MySpace page, www.myspace.com/opcritical, and is donating 50% of the all download sales to the Courage Campaign, www.couragecampaign.org, which has been one of the leading groups working to overturn the Prop 8 referendum. The video is dedicated to all those who have fought for marriage equality, and Justice Through Music and Op-Critical urge viewers to also support the Human Rights Campaign, www.hrc.org.

(source: Justice Through Music)