On June 24th my buddies
Claude, Wayne and I left the Castro Theatre for our Market Street abode to join
Claude’s husband David in lifting a glass of California bubbly in celebration
of our old stomping grounds, New York’s adoption of same-sex marriage. The
euphoria of the moment was followed for me by a flashback to my living room
office where a year and a week earlier a small Mormon family sat on my black
couch to discuss how their lives had been upended by the passage of California
Proposition 8. This family: mom, son and son’s handsome hubby are the poster
folks for an engrossing, if profoundly disturbing and astonishingly well
documented study on how a most American religious sect planned and plotted to
upend gay marriage in our largest state.
Watching 8 The Mormon
Proposition again I was struck by how insidiously the church and its
leaders succeeded in concealing the extent of their involvement in the
campaign. A Mormon training film shows two surfer dudes strolling up the beach
in wet suits – it plays like an outtake from Bruce Brown’s surfing classic The
Endless Summer but these hirsute, dirty blondes had more on their minds
than catching the next wave.
“So why do you care about who
marries who or whatever?”
“I don’t know, this whole
Proposition 8 thing seems like it could be a pretty big deal. There’s got to be
more to this same-sex marriage stuff than Hollywood and everyone says. I mean,
seriously, think about it – is there anyone in Hollywood that you would trust
with anything important?”
Starting with this over-the-top
funny dead pan serious pitch – that could be right out of the Tony-winning Book
of Mormon – this cogent, scary look at the big money and ideologies that fuel
hot button debates in America today takes an incisive look at the deeper
reasons why Mormon Church leaders have targeted our march towards equality for
the past several decades. As one cheerful, blonde ex-Mormon female explains
midway through the follow the money chapter.
“Gays interrupt the Mormon plan for
Heaven, so taking away any sense of humanity or rights that they may deserve is
just collateral damage in pursuit of what they believe is critical to their
beliefs.”
Director Reed Cowan spends the
first hour proving that Mormon dollars accounted for up to 70 percent of Prop
8’s campaign war chest, and as one out male, former Mormon Prop 8 opponent
explains, we’re talking big bucks here, much of it bundled directly from Mormon
congregations in Utah. “We’re talking Obama kind of money – we’re talking about
people we had never heard of before who had never given to a political campaign
expect Mitt Romney for president.”
The film shifts into high gear with
a secret recording of a close circuit election strategy broadcast from top
Mormon leaders, in which the “wise men” appear like the creepy old baddies from
the Matrix movies.
Narrated by Milk’s Oscar
winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, himself raised Mormon in Texas, the
film’s emotional centerpiece is an enthusiastic young male couple with, as it
turns out, impeccable Mormon credentials: Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones,
whose lineage can be traced back to the 19th century when the
fledging church was the subject of ferocious persecution from fundamentalist
Christians. Tyler and Spencer go from the exuberance of young love sealed with
a kiss at San Francisco City Hall nuptials to bitter tears as the election
night returns destroy their dream.
An almost giddy Prop 8 female
opponent, celebrating at a California election night victory party, gushes, “It
makes me feel American – call it cheesy -- but it really does.”
Back to my couch: On June 18, 2010,
Tyler Barrick, his married husband, Spencer Jones are sitting with Tyler’s mom,
Linda Stay, under a Polaroid blowup of me and my mom, taken by my first
boyfriend. What follows are 43 minutes of an emotional tale on how they came to
live outside of the Mormon family.
Tyler Barrick: My great-great-great grandfather was
Frederick G. Williams who was Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon
movement’s right hand man. Growing up you hear so much about the pioneers, who
crossed the plains who were persecuted by Evangelical Christians for their
practice of plural marriage – you hear that we’re put on this earth to be
tested so our struggles that we go through are always relayed back to our
ancestors: what you’re going through is nothing compared to what they went
through -- if that gives you a little piece of Mormon mind.
Spencer Jones: I’m from a small town in Utah, Tyler’s from a
small town in Idaho, and in those communities – it’s 90 percent Mormon -- it’s
not just your church, it’s your community. And you not just going to a Sabbath
day service, you’re going to the Church…
Barrick: …Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday….
Jones: … And to find yourself gay – something that’s not
allowed – is not possible in that framework.
(Addressing Tyler) I sort of made
it work for the first six years (before) Proposition 8. I knew I loved you, I
brought you home holidays, the family saw you – they didn’t really agree with
it but they didn’t say anything it was just sort of an uncomfortable issue we
didn’t talk about. But with Proposition 8 – in Tyler’s case extended family
giving money in favor of Proposition 8 -- it was no longer an issue we could
agree to disagree on and we had to let them know it hurt us.
Linda Stay: It sounds silly but I actually picked up the
phone in the middle of the night and heard him (Tyler) talking to a man and I
was shocked and I hung up the phone.
We had left Idaho and an abusive
situation – I had health issues. I dropped to my knees and said, “Please, God,
help me say the right thing. Don’t let me screw this up.”
Tyler was my right hand man, Tyler
was (choking up) my friend, my rock – I thought he was so special, God’s gift
to me and I thought he would grow up and be the Prophet. As I went down the
stairs and motioned him to come over to the couch and put my arms around him, I
heard myself saying, “It’s okay, I love you.”