Earlier this summer, the world was reminded by a courageous, same-sex marriage-supporting Carrie Underwood that Nashville and country music are, in fact, home to a greater diversity of perspectives than people might like to think. Four years ago, Gretchen Peters had a statement-heard-round-the-world experience of her own, one that was set in motion by Sarah Palin and involved Planned Parenthood. (Read on for the rest of that strange but true story.) Tomorrow night, Aug. 29, Peters and her fellow Wine, Women and Song performers — Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss — are playing a benefit show for Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee at The Rutledge. In addition to their commitments to the cause, they share in common the fact that they’ve each also impacted the country charts as singers or songwriters, Peters, most famously, with the early Martina McBride hit and 1994 CMA Song of the Year “Independence Day.”
Nashville Cream: For those who don’t know the story, how was it that you came to donate money to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin’s name?
Gretchen Peters: It was the night Sarah Palin debated Joe Biden. I got a call late that night from my booking agent, and she said, “Did you see what’s happened?” And I had no idea what she was talking about, but apparently Sarah Palin walked out on the podium to my song, to “Independence Day,” as her rallying cry. It wasn’t the first use of the song, obviously — or misuse I should say — by the Republican party or the right wing or any political faction for that matter. Although I’d never heard of anybody on the other side doing that. But it was, I guess, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I started to realize that probably there were a lot of people that thought that that really was a song about politics or patriotism or something like that, and that really got under my skin, because, of course, that’s not what it’s about.
