Watch Leo Herrera’s Sermon as part of Sniffies’ Cruising Revival, an event to kick off New Orleans’ Southern Decadence—and below, check out how the event came together with an exclusive look behind the scenes.
I had never seen my chosen brother Brett glow like this before. And just 48 hours earlier, I had never seen him so tired and worried. We both gazed at the stage as if we were witnessing a miracle…
Brett and I were tapped by Sniffies to produce an event kicking off Southern Decadence, a fifty-year-old, five day celebration in New Orleans. It’s one of the largest and most debaucherous LGBTQ gatherings in the South—like Pride’s sluttier sibling. What started as a tiny house party in 1972 has evolved into a bacchanal and a cultural and economic engine. It was a natural collaboration; Brett produces some of the best Queer underground events in New Orleans, I write about cruising and Queer spirituality, and Sniffies has been branching out into elaborate Queer-centric live events.
We wanted to bring something different than the cruisy dance parties and bar crawls competing for bodies. It would be a social gathering, art exhibit and a panel with beloved New Orleans characters, covering the origins and meaning of Decadence. The location was a coup: a glorious, deconsecrated church built in 1860 with towering ceilings and stained glass windows. We decided to lean into the space and reflect on not just the sex but the spiritual meaning of Decadence. We called it a Cruising Revival, and it would open with a “sermon.”
I spent nearly two months writing a ten-minute sermon invoking the history of Decadence against the backdrop of violence and hurricanes. Combining spirituality with politics and Queer sex can be volatile at best and cringe at worst. We needed a moment that would completely silence the audience and instantly transmit our intentions. Opening with a song was the time-tested structure of a mass. Finding a choir in New Orleans, how hard could it be?
Turns out, very fucking hard. We couldn't exactly ask a local church’s choir to sing at an event this raunchy. The rent-a-choirs were too generic. Professional gospel choirs were too far away or prohibitively expensive. The Gay choruses didn’t reflect the racial diversity of the city. Brett called every performer he could think of, and we posted pleas all over Facebook. The search got grim. There was talk of skipping the choir and getting a drag queen instead, but that would fry the crowd too early. I started to have dreadful visions of trying to preach to distracted, horny Gays who had shown up just to party.
To protect my nerves, Brett kept me in the dark about the search, but I knew things were desperate 48 hours before showtime, when I heard him asking the straight lighting guys if they knew any choirs. At this 11th hour, I resigned myself to raw-dogging the crowd. I spent that night rewriting a version of the sermon that included some stand-up comedy bits. Saying “cum dump” in a church would surely get their attention.
24 hours before the event, I got a text from Brett. “Might have something, will find out tomorrow,” it read.
The day of the Revival, the panelists arrived ready and excited: Michael Hickerson, 1983’s Decadence Grand Marshal; historian and social media star Quinn Bishop; and writer and owner of the iconic Mona Lisa restaurant, Farrow Stephenson. DJ phlegm’s soulful music filled the space. The bars poured stiff drinks that tasted like battery acid. Dimitri, Sniffies’ event producer, proudly showed me the glory hole hidden in the pop-up fitting room of the merch booth. People started pouring in. “Holy shit, this is a production,” I heard one say.
I felt sick with adrenaline and holed myself up in the green room/storage closet, pacing, waiting for the beta blockers to kick in, practicing the last-minute jokes I had tacked on to my piece. Everything was ready. Well, almost everything. “I think we got it,” Brett tried to reassure me. We didn’t even need to mention the choir. But by then, seeing was believing.
At 7 p.m. sharp, Rayshaughn, Whitney Mixon, Kirkland Green and Patrick Smith took the stage.
The group sang a slow, a cappella rendition of Sylvester’s You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real). For lovers of Queer history and nightlife, this is the hymn. Their harmonies doubled, tripled and quadrupled, rising up to the heavenly ceiling like steam, then bouncing off the glowing stained glass and stunning the crowd into dead silence.
I looked over at Brett. He shot that thousand-watt smile at me and raised his arms, snapping and waving like a church lady. When the group hit the highest note, I felt the hairs on my neck stand on end. I saw tears in the front row. And with the room finally ours, I cleared the knot in my throat and marched on stage to deliver the sermon.
Photos by Monwell Frazier