Director Reed Cowan's documentary on
the Mormon Church's decades-old involvement in the fight to ban gay
marriage in the United States is ready for its premiere screening.
And Californians
Against Hate Founder Fred Karger says the film will “undoubtedly
change history.”
While still in production the film drew
fire when Cowan released several controversial audio clips in
February.
Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, a
practicing Mormon, lost his chair of the powerful Judicial Committee
after the Republican was heard in a Cowan interview calling the gay
rights movement “probably the greatest threat to America” and gay
folks “mean.”
“They're mean. They want to talk
about being nice. They're the meanest buggers I have ever seen.”
“It's just like the Muslims,” he
adds, moments later. “Muslims are good people and their religion
is anti-war. But it's been taken over by the radical side.”
Not surprisingly, Cowan's
trailer for his film, 8: The Mormon Proposition, begins
with a tight close up of the senator.
In a series of interviews with Mormon
Church leaders, gay activists and Utah politicians, Cowan shines a
bright light on the church's profuse involvement in banning gay
marriage throughout the nation since the early 1990s. A revelation
no more since Karger began meddling in the church's affairs.
“It tells my story,” Karger told On
Top Magazine. And it will “knock your socks off,” he added.
Cowan first interviewed Karger in San
Francisco. The pair met in front of the Castro Theater on Wednesday,
March 4 just as a huge gay marriage vigil was about to step off.
Karger spoke to the filmmaker two more times over the course of the
next year.
What is the Mormon proposition? The
film is expected to showcase the major gay marriage battles the
Mormon Church has backed since Utah became the first state to ban gay
marriage in 1995. And how church officials attempted to conceal
their deep involvement in the issue. Is the Mormon Church the
mastermind puppeteer of the anti-gay marriage movement?
In a blog post, Cowan said the film had
divided his family.
“My determination [to finish the
film] has been tested. At this writing, I have lost communication
with my sisters and my mother and my father. They are wonderful
people and they are Mormons. The fear they have over what this film
will say has worn thin to the point that our relationships are
stressed and I fear broken forever,” he said.
The film is being considered for a
Sundance Film Festival premiere in January.