Cyndi Lauper‘s trip to D.C. couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. The ’80s singer, whose near and dear issue is helping homeless gay and transgender youth, breezed into town Wednesday right on the heels of President Obama‘s announcement that he supported same-sex marriage. “I was really proud of him; I think he’s really brave. They were on him for everything,” the singer told Yeas & Nays before her big night.
Then she took a jab at Mitt Romney‘s opposing stance on the issue.
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“Romney is his own man and whatever he does — I’m not a supporter — but I’m sure that whatever he does and however he speaks about things it really shows who he is, and that’s just one more reason I won’t be voting for him,” she continued.
Lauper was being honored for her work with the LGBT community by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (say that three times fast) at the Heroes of Hope tribute at George Washington University.
Lauper got a bit choked up when she first came on stage and later returned with a dulcimer in hand. “When this instrument was very popular was 100 years ago so basically nobody really knows if you make a mistake or not because everybody who used to play this is dead,” she laughed, warming up to play “True Colors.”
Then Lauper took time to talk more about what drew her to the gay community. Back when “the internet was like Star Trek” and she was pregnant with her son she read lots of online fan mail. “It was from people who had come out in the ’80s when [‘True Colors’] was popular, they said that this song gave them hope to keep going and that it was OK to be different,” she said. “Every time I wanted to be like everybody else it got worse, as you saw in the ‘Apprentice,’ they complained about the way I talked, but then they were all talking like me and I think that was confusing,” she laughed. “Everybody’s different, even though you want to be the same,” she said before plucking away at that dulcimer.
