Protest over Trump’s use of Parsi singer’s anthem

CLEVELAND (Ohio): "I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear," Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock group Queen said in an interview before he died in 1991 at age 45 of Aids, one of the first entertainers claimed by the disease. But he maintained that "When I'm dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance."

He certainly is. And it’s a legacy his fellow band members Brian May and Roger Taylor have sedulously tried protect and promote. This week they challenged the Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s use of the song "We are the champions" at the party convention, calling it unauthorized and "against our wishes."

The song was written by Freddie Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara to a Parsi family in Zanzibar (now Tanzania). It is one of the most recognized rock anthems of all times, and its lyrics apparently were in tune with the Trump’s boasts. They read:

I've paid my duesTime after timeI've done my sentenceBut committed no crimeAnd bad mistakesI've made a fewI've had my share of sand kicked in my faceBut I've come throughWe are the champions, my friendsAnd we'll keep on fighting 'til the endWe are the championsWe are the championsNo time for losers'Cause we are the champions of the world

The song blared out over the system at Quicken Loans arena on Monday as Trump made a dramatic entrance to introduce his wife Melania.

There are a couple of problems though: The Trump campaign has not obtained permission to use the song.

"Queen does not want its music associated with any mainstream or political debate in any country. Nor does Queen want ‘We Are The Champions’ to be used as an endorsement of Mr. Trump and the political views of the Republican Party," the band said in a statement issued through their publisher Sony/ATV music.

And on top of that: Freddie Mercury, who was bisexual, is a gay icon, not exactly the favorite of a party that had a large number of homophobes in its ranks notwithstanding a small section of LGBT supporters who come under the rubric of Log Cabin Republicans.

In fact, the Log Cabin Republicans are already "mad as hell" about the GOP platform released this week, saying it fundamentally anti-LGBT, even as wingnuts in the party roam around the convention center belting out homophobic declamations.

"Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of "pray the gay away" — it's all in there," the group’s president Gregory Angelo said. "This isn't my GOP, and I know it's not yours either. Heck, it's not even Donald Trump's!"

"When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO." Angelo complained.

Trump himself has been more open and inclusive as far as LGBT matters go, notwithstanding divisiveness on the other issues. Aside from embracing Queen (albeit without their permission), he has also roped in Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal, to speak at the convention on the final day.

Thiel will be the first openly gay speaker to address his sexuality at a Republican convention, not to speak of being one of the rare Silicon Valley tycoons to endorse Trump.

As Queen’s Freddie Mercury, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, might have said: The show must go on.