For The Bible Tells Me So

For The Bible Tells Me So (Director: Daniel Karslake): This doc­u­mentary came to my atten­tion through Joel Heller’s excel­lent site Docs That Inspire, before it played at Sundance this past January. The film explores the inter­sec­tion of homo­sexu­ality and reli­gion, par­tic­u­larly among con­ser­vative Christians, and as such, it tackles a sub­ject near and dear to me. I spent many years immersed in the evan­gel­ical sub­cul­ture and went through the very painful coming-out exper­i­ence of a close friend. This is exactly the sort of film I wish we’d had in the early 90s. Through the exper­i­ences of five Christian fam­ilies, each with a gay or les­bian child, we watch as real people struggle to integ­rate their love for their fam­ilies with their own beliefs and exper­i­ences. But this isn’t the typ­ical con­front­a­tional sort of film many of us have seen before. Instead, we meet clergy who have wrestled hon­estly with what the Bible says, and who are able to recon­cile their faith with accept­ance of gay and les­bian people. It’s gut-wrenching stuff, and not everyone will be con­vinced by the theo­logy, but at least it gets people dis­cussing the meaning of the dis­puted bib­lical pas­sages, rather than just quoting them.

I par­tic­u­larly liked that not all the fam­ilies are the same. Some still struggle to accept what they per­ceive to be their child’s “sinful” life­style, while others have gone on to polit­ical act­ivism (in some cases, even to the point of being arrested!). Karslake has made a very wise choice by adopting the name of a par­tic­u­larly obstinate opponent of gay rights, Focus on the Family, as his theme. By focus­sing on the real fam­ilies and exper­i­ences of gay people, he removes much of the appre­hen­sion and fear of straight people, espe­cially reli­gious straight people. I loved the way he intro­duced each family by having the par­ents explain how they them­selves met and fell in love. It showed us that attrac­tion and romance are at the root of all of our fam­ilies, and that the rela­tion­ships of gay people are really not much dif­ferent than anyone else’s.

If I have any mis­giv­ings about the film, they are rel­at­ively minor. One is the use of a short anim­ated seg­ment to try to explain some of the recent sci­entific research around homo­sexu­ality. I thought the tone was a little too self-consciously light-hearted and I thought the seg­ment was largely unne­ces­sary. The other quibble was that earlier in the film, Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson is (right­fully) called out for com­paring advoc­ates of gay mar­riage to Hitler, but then later, actual footage of Hitler is used to describe the per­se­cu­tion of gay people. I don’t think you can have it both ways.

Nevertheless, this is a fair, gen­erous, and incred­ibly moving por­trait of real people trying to recon­cile their deepest-held beliefs with their very iden­tities of them­selves or of those closest to them. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I was moved to tears sev­eral times. Despite that, I think it’s a film that would move others who are per­haps not quite so close to the issues. My wife and I have a run­ning joke. We’ve got the great idea that if only fun­da­ment­alist Christians and gay people could actu­ally meet each other instead of hurling insults across the divide, much under­standing and even recon­cil­a­tion could be achieved. I’ve offered to hold a series of dinner events called “Fags and Fundies” to which we could invite quite a few of our friends. I think I’ve found the per­fect film to get the dis­cus­sion started.

NOTE: The film is showing in various venues in the US in the coming months, but so far, there are no Toronto screening dates. Check the film’s site for any changes, and look for a DVD release in the coming months.

UPDATE (January 9, 2008): The film’s Toronto premiere will be tonight at the Bloor Cinema as part of the Doc Soup pro­gramme. Director Daniel Karslake will be in attend­ance. Screenings at 6:30pm and 9:15pm.

Official web site of the film

Docs That Inspire’s Joel Heller inter­views dir­ector Daniel Karslake

Soulforce, an organ­iz­a­tion of gay and les­bian Christians and their straight allies fighting reli­gious bigotry

PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)

(9/10)

Tagged as: christianity, Documentaries, homosexuality, religion, Theatrical Release