Michael McGuire: Wishes for love, acceptance

Michael McGuire wasn't the first adolescent boy to fool around with another; he won't be the last, either. But after the rendezvous, 57-year-old McGuire knew, for certain this time, he was gay.
He wasn't ashamed. In fact, he thought it was a gift. "I wouldn't be the man I am today – educationally, culturally, socially – if I weren't gay," McGuire says.
After his beloved friend Gian-Mario Besana persuaded him to volunteer for LGBT affairs, McGuire decided to dedicate time to the Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project. Recently elected to the Board of Directors, McGuire is now the board's vice president and secretary. He recently finished a five-year term on the Board of Directors of the Certification Board for Music Therapists and served as chair of the board for the last two years.
McGuire has also made donations to several local and national LGBT organizations. "I'd like to help out wherever I can," he says. "I'm proud of all of the things I've been able to help out with."
Ten years ago McGuire, an Ypsilanti resident, served as the faculty advisor for the LGBT student group at Eastern Michigan University, where he's directed the music therapy program at EMU for 23 years. He's been the faculty advisor for EMU's Queer Unity For Eastern Students for the last two years.
"I take a back seat kind of role with them," he says. "I usually wait for them to contact me in terms of how I can help them out. My role used to be more involved but that was before the LGBT Resource Center was created."
McGuire wishes all people could be loving and accepting. "The human condition is just that, and we are all in the same boat at the end of the day," he says. "I am stunned that there is still so much vituperative energy directed toward the LGBT community."
Over the years he's met people from all walks of life who've inspired him: a friend who's a professional cellist, a gay male couple with four adopted sons and another friend who has an "incredible energy level for museums and cutting-edge art."
"There isn't just one person who inspires me," he says. "I am inspired by friends who have a passion for living, for their families, for music and art, for travel."
He calls them his extended family and often travels and dines with them. When he's not at WRAP, McGuire spins bassist Donald Hartmann and pianist Joel Schoenhals – both colleagues of his – and soprano singer Rene Fleming and more mainstream music like Annie Lenox, Stevie Nicks and Rufus Wainwright.
As far as films, McGuire relishes "kick-ass" high-voltage, shoot-'em-up flicks with Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise and Wesley Snipes. "Party Monster," about a rave-party organizer and a murderer, the 1996 film "Lilies" and 1994's "Long-Time Companion," which he saw five times upon its release, are his favorite LGBT-themed films.
With the Gay Games on our tails, McGuire, who's been going to New York City every year since he was 17, recalls registering athletes, answering the information phone line and singing in the chorus at the opening and closing of the games in NYC.
"I thought it was really exciting. I was able to get much more involved in the process than I thought I would," he says.
But that was 12 years ago.
McGuire's flabbergasted that time has moved like lightening. He'll retire in about 10 years, but he hopes "to continue to make some level of contribution to LGBT work."