The battle for LGBTQ rights hasn't only been fought on the streets of coastal cities; it has also taken place on the dirt roads, campuses, and in the homes of rural America. In this new short documentary‚ released 50 years after the Stonewall riots, which brought LGBTQ rights into the national consciousness‚ gay men living in central Tennessee, and their families, share stories of struggle and self-acceptance. We meet the retiree who spent his entire professional life in the closet, his devoted partner of 20 years, a pastor determined to overcome his own prejudices, and the pastor's gay son, newly in love and just starting to come into his own.
The location is Centerville, Tennessee, about 60 miles southwest of Nashville; Nashville is the home of Vanderbilt University, a large, prestigious private college.
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4 comments:
Very moving.
I thought so, too.
K.C.Potter and his partner/husband story is quite touching. There was, in my opinion too much from the father of the gay boy who was not featured very prominently. I can only "imagine" what life would be like for LGBTQs young people without religion (and I speak from experience).
Religion, like other things in life, can be a help or a hindrance - or even both at the same time. (I, too, speak from experience.)
This single video contains two very different stories. The interesting thing to me about the second one is that it shows a deeply religious dad in the process of changing his views. We don't usually get to see that struggle - mostly on TV we see people who are all one way or the other, pro- or anti-gay. This is like watching Jacob wrestle with the angel: a conflict between the earthly and the divine, that is to say, between what is in his head and what is in his heart.
Having spent seven blinkered (and of course closeted) years in that kind of church, I well understand the conflict - it's even worse, though, to be the gay boy grappling with the solemn truths you're told and the simple Truth you know inside yourself.
My own wrestling match was quite painful, but it left me free to develop a wider, higher, better understanding of the Good. I hope that conflicted dad finds his own way there.
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