"For the Bible Tells Me So"

On Saturday I went to see the movie "For the Bible Tells Me So". I knew it was going to be good. I had read the reviews and knew that I agreed with what the makers of the movie were saying.

It was great to go and see so many people there. I have been to that movie theater a few times (they play movies that are different, quirky or that other theaters will not play) and most of the time there have been few people in the seats. This time they had to get out extra chairs and check to see where there were any empty seats. There was a discussion planned for after the movie.

It was riveting from the beginning to the end. I wish I had taken notes, so I could recount the movie, but I just sat back and let it wash over me. It told the stories of families and how they reacted to the news that their son or daughter was gay or lesbian. It also took on the different passages in the Bible that are brought up over and over to support why being gay is a sin.....

The families' stories were heartbreaking, uplifting, thought-provoking, wonderful, awful - I was in tears over and over. There was a family who embraced their child with love and acceptance, there was a family whose shock was so much that it took time after which the parents became activists, there was a family whose clinging to those Bible verses caused a rift too deep and ended with suicide and a family who loves the sinner, but still hates the sin (their way of looking at it, not mine).

Theologians took on the Biblical passages. I have never been a literalist (which from the movie I learned is a recent way of looking at the Bible), so those passages never said much to me, except laws that are obsolete and mean nothing in today's world.

One of the families in the movie was Bishop Gene Robinson's. It was touching to hear his elderly parents talk about his coming out and how they dealt with it. And it was inspiring to watch the people cheer and celebrate when he was accepted as an Episcopal Bishop - even in the presence of lots of opposition. The pageantry of his installation is a bit over the top, but watching it made me cry. And, knowing he had to wear a bullet-proof vest, because of death threats, that makes me cry too.

One of our local reviewers wrote a positive and well written review of the movie. At the end he said something that haunts me - that the people who are going to this movie are, for the most part, not the people who need to see it. I wish there was a way to get those who should see it into the theater. If only they could see those people, hear their stories, it could make a real difference. Because, it is through knowing people and hearing their stories that people can be touched to open and think about change.