As she was putting together her plans for the Dance-Along Nutcracker annual holiday concert presented by San Francisco’s LGBTQ marching band, then-director Jadine Louie fielded a request to have a handbell choir at the 1996 December performances. It came from Steve Rausch, then serving as music director at Bethany United Methodist Church.

Rausch, a gay man, had been wanting a handbell choir to perform during services and other events at the liberal congregation in the city’s Noe Valley neighborhood. That July, he got the opportunity to form one when he learned a city senior center had put three octaves of handbells up for sale.

“Jerry Lindberg, who tuned Bethany’s pipe organ, taught music and sign language (deaf signing) to the seniors there and he notified me that they were selling thei

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