In 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. One of the first couples to get married was Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones, the almost improbably happy couple introduced at the start of Reed Cowan's passionate but scattered documentary about the religious conservative fight to rescind their right to marry. Although Cowan's film deals in a broader way with the movement that opposes gay civil rights, it's much more specifically an attack on the Mormon church and its role in that movement. Interestingly, not only are almost all of the subjects interviewed in the film Mormon (current or ex) but all the filmmakers - including Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black - are as well. For his part, Cowan was a onetime Mormon evangelist. Everyone has axes to grind.
With its emphasis on sprawling families united here and in the afterlife by a strong obedience to church and filial authority, the Mormon church felt threatened by the court ruling and sprang quickly into action. (Same-sex couples, since they can't have children on their own, don't fit in with this way of structuring life.) A video address to churchmembers by some of the leading "apostles" gives an idea of the call to arms they had in mind: "You are a mighty army."
According to 8, the church's plan was massive but simple: raise huge amounts of money and utilize a network of dedicated Mormon volunteers to propose and support California Proposition 8, which would define marriage as between a man and a woman only. To keep the church from being singled out for criticism, they masked their movements behind a scrim of front organizations of like-minded groups that didn't have the money or single-minded focus to pull it off. As one interviewee notes in the film, the Mormon leadership had the three things necessary to wage such a large-bore political campaign in a short amount of time: money, volunteers, and a resonant message. Pitching Proposition 8 as not an anti-gay but pro-family legislation - the clips that are shown of some pro-Proposition 8 ads sinisterly recalibrate discrimination as defending some vague idea of timeless American values - the normally quiet church made its presence known in the public sphere in a way that hasn't been seen since the Mormon wars of the mid-nineteenth century.
Utilizing a treasure trove of internal church documents obtained by an investigative reporter, Cowan's film provides a detailed examination of how the church clandestinely supported this legislation. It is less successful in other aspects, however. Although aiming for a sense of moral outrage, the opening scenes with Tyler and Spencer (both Mormon as well) are so overwrought and saccharine that it undermines an otherwise strongly-worded piece of issue cinema. The chintzy music and local news-style video camerawork doesn't help, either.
Cowan's film takes an abrupt turn later on when it delves into another emotionally-fraught subject: that of high rates of suicide among young gay Mormons, frequently abandoned on the streets by families who seemingly would prefer to see them dead. While there is almost no more illustrative sign of the church's antagonism towards gays, the way it's tacked on near the end of the film gives the problem short shrift; as does Cowan's too-little, too-late approach to one weapon that the church's opponents want to use against it: removing its tax-exempt status, something proffered to religious groups in exchange for their not engaging directly in politics. It's possible that in using their clout to so aggressively pursue such an ugly cause and winning, the Mormon church may actually have provided their opposition with a very powerful weapon against them.
With its emphasis on sprawling families united here and in the afterlife by a strong obedience to church and filial authority, the Mormon church felt threatened by the court ruling and sprang quickly into action. (Same-sex couples, since they can't have children on their own, don't fit in with this way of structuring life.) A video address to churchmembers by some of the leading "apostles" gives an idea of the call to arms they had in mind: "You are a mighty army."
According to 8, the church's plan was massive but simple: raise huge amounts of money and utilize a network of dedicated Mormon volunteers to propose and support California Proposition 8, which would define marriage as between a man and a woman only. To keep the church from being singled out for criticism, they masked their movements behind a scrim of front organizations of like-minded groups that didn't have the money or single-minded focus to pull it off. As one interviewee notes in the film, the Mormon leadership had the three things necessary to wage such a large-bore political campaign in a short amount of time: money, volunteers, and a resonant message. Pitching Proposition 8 as not an anti-gay but pro-family legislation - the clips that are shown of some pro-Proposition 8 ads sinisterly recalibrate discrimination as defending some vague idea of timeless American values - the normally quiet church made its presence known in the public sphere in a way that hasn't been seen since the Mormon wars of the mid-nineteenth century.
Utilizing a treasure trove of internal church documents obtained by an investigative reporter, Cowan's film provides a detailed examination of how the church clandestinely supported this legislation. It is less successful in other aspects, however. Although aiming for a sense of moral outrage, the opening scenes with Tyler and Spencer (both Mormon as well) are so overwrought and saccharine that it undermines an otherwise strongly-worded piece of issue cinema. The chintzy music and local news-style video camerawork doesn't help, either.
Cowan's film takes an abrupt turn later on when it delves into another emotionally-fraught subject: that of high rates of suicide among young gay Mormons, frequently abandoned on the streets by families who seemingly would prefer to see them dead. While there is almost no more illustrative sign of the church's antagonism towards gays, the way it's tacked on near the end of the film gives the problem short shrift; as does Cowan's too-little, too-late approach to one weapon that the church's opponents want to use against it: removing its tax-exempt status, something proffered to religious groups in exchange for their not engaging directly in politics. It's possible that in using their clout to so aggressively pursue such an ugly cause and winning, the Mormon church may actually have provided their opposition with a very powerful weapon against them.
