in Ohio. The pep band only knew 2 songs and one of them was Vehicle by The Ides of March.

Hmmm.

C'mon!

Although I'm not sure how a marching band would be able to play Patrick Cowley's synthesizer composition, especially on this song:

I'm 75.

Not sure what your post has to do with the OP?

...first openly gay artists to have a Top 40 hit. Several Top 40 hits to be a exact, and a boatload of Dance Club Song hits to go with that as well.

I would recommend Jobriath, but he's a bit more obscure and is usually only known among glam rock enthusiasts such as myself.

I never heard of 'Patrick Cowley's synthesizer composition'.

Different tastes in music, I guess.
I still recall walking into a bar in West Hollywood around 2002 and they were blasting out
"Where the Boys Are" (a 1961 hit)

Then there are also his backup singers Two Tons of Fun who later became the Weather Girls. But won't go into too much detail.

I like to read about the details of a song, sort of like taking apart a device to see what makes it tick.

But anyway, here's a fun fact! In Ann Arbor, where U of Mich. is located. The very first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to political office was Kathy Kozachenko to a city council seat. This was a few years before Harvey Milk. I'm surprised they haven't named the Spectrum center after her yet.