The Mormon Proposition

Wednesday afternoon, I tramped over to the Tower Theatre and took my place in line for 8: The Mormon Proposition. A small group of protesters chanted "Separate church and hate!" for a little while, but fairly early on, realizing they were preaching to the choir, resorted simply to holding up anti-8 posters and handing out 8 dollar bills decrying the money the LDS church spent on the measure. The nice lesbian couple in front of me in line chatted with one of the protesters who had seen the Sunday screening and asserted that they were about to see a love story, a "three tissue box" film.

Once in the theater, and looking around at my fellow theater-goers, I concluded that I was one of a small minority who showed up alone. A young, clean-cut gay couple (looking for everything like a couple of Mormon missionaries) sat down next me on my right, while a middle-aged lesbian couple nestled up with each other in front of me.

Blame it on my focus on the legal and political aspects of the fight for marriage equality, but it really wasn't until shortly before the film started that I realized that this documentary was, in fact, a film about how outside forces had conspired to deny couples in love the chance to get married. I was about to view an old-fashioned love story.

The Mormon Proposition mostly follows the story of a young gay couple, Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones, both former Mormons. Early on, the film captures Tyler and Spencer's youthful, tender, wide-eyed love for each other as they recounted their courtship and eventual marriage. I'm no romantic, but I admit that as Tyler and Spencer held each other's hands, spoke their vows, and kissed and held each other and jumped for joy in the San Francisco courthouse, I teared up.


Enter The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Or Reed Cowan's portrayal of it. In the spirit of accuracy, I'll dock a point from the film for seizing on and amplifying the belief, among some in the church, that the LDS God is a polygamist and that the afterlife will be primarily an intergalactic polygamous romp. Certainly there is both historical and scriptural support for such an interpretation of Mormon doctrine. The current LDS church's position on God's wives, marriage(s) and the afterlife, however, is not quite so sensational as Reed makes it out to be.

However you characterize it, though, the LDS church does continue to believe, at the very least, that polygamy was once justified. Which is still a nice little bridge to the next phase of the film.


Enter Fred Karger.

Referring to himself as an elections researcher, Fred managed to obtain, through an anonymous source in Salt Lake, a treasure trove of internal Mormon documents laying out the church's political strategy to take on gay marriage. At least in Hawaii. Contrary to the LDS church's official statement on the film (asserting that "It appears that accuracy and truth are rare commodities in this film"), issued without ever actually having seen it, Karger's research simply compiles the LDS church's own statements. So unless Kim Farah is willing to concede that Russell Ballard, Neil Maxwell, and Gordon Hinckley et al. reported inaccuracies and falsehoods in their letters and memoranda to each other, I'd have to conclude that at least that part of the film is accurate and truthful.

Most damning among Karger's documents was a report detailing how certain leaders in the church congratulated each other on their successful efforts to conceal their campaign contributions during the marriage equality fight in Hawaii. Those efforts included establishing "coalitions" with other religions that enjoyed more positive public support, setting up front groups (predecessors to the National Organization for Marriage), choosing spokespersons for the campaign with a low publicly perceived connection to the LDS church, and generally making contributions in areas and ways that do not need to be reported.

So what if the Mormon church decided to get involved politically to overturn Supreme Court rulings and amend state constitutions? Not a huge deal, I guess. Aside from federal prohibitions on 501(c)(3) non-profits engaging substantial portions of their resources and time to advance political agendas, I suppose the LDS church is within their rights to speak out against what they consider to be moral evils.

What gets me is the deception. It's deliberately making contributions in ways that do not need to be reported with the intent to mask the church's involvement so a public skeptical of its doctrines and history do not sour on the message as a result of the messenger.

Equally damning, in my mind, are the church's outrageous statements, also documented in the film, that somehow granting equal marital rights to our gay brothers and sisters will somehow result in a loss of religious freedom. During the campaign in 2008, I received several reports from my LDS friends in California and elsewhere that church leaders were distributing propaganda alleging that if Proposition 8 were to fail, church leaders would be forced to choose between solemnizing gay marriages in the temple or shutting down the temples altogether. I've described the church's disingenuous and outright false arguments in a previous post. Cowan simply repeats them for a public audience wishing to reflect on the church's methods and motivations.

I will note that once the film completes its review of Fred Karger's Hawaii documents, it starts to stray from its solid documentation of allegations. For example, there are no documents or other evidence presented to prove the film's bald assertion that the National Organization for Marriage was founded by Matthew Holland (an individual Cowan must have known wasn't exactly a "high-ranking official," but rather a professor at BYU whose influence stems from his father's position as an LDS apostle). While the elaborate narrative describing how Holland, under the implied direction of the LDS church, recruited other religious leaders to form NOM, may well be accurate (Holland was indisputably a member of NOM's board of directors), the documentation was lacking.

Along with the strength of Karger's research, The Mormon Proposition is at its strongest when it features interviews with California Mormons and former Mormons who decode the church's statements and calls to action. Any Mormon who has gone through the LDS temple rites knows the subtext of the church's call for members to donate of their "time and means" to defeat Proposition 8. Cowan successfully interprets the call as based on sacred oaths and covenants Mormons make, many of whom originally made on explicit penalty of bloody death, disembowelment and dismemberment. Documents and interview showing how Mormons in California subsequently donated funds meant for their children's college education, indeed, their entire life savings, to defeat Propostion 8 make more sense in context.


As the film progresses from this point, it begins to lose its tight focus on the fight against Proposition 8. By his own admission,* Reed Cowan began the film project that became The Mormon Proposition intending to document lives of homeless, gay, Mormon teenagers. So, predictably, after working over the specifics of the California campaign, the film wanders into the Mormon church's more reprehensible policies and practices toward its gay members.

Cowan interviews a man who was subjected to the horrors of BYU's "aversion therapy" program. His account describes being shown gay pornographic films while being administered massive doses of ipecac and electric shocks in response to his perceived sexual arousal. The man, who subsequently left the church and worked in a psychiatric ward in Provo, related additional tales of electroshock "therapy" administered to other gay men at BYU, whose arms, legs, genitals and other body parts were severely scarred as a result. He also spoke of gay Mormon men he knew who attempted and committed suicide because of their participation in the program. Interviews with other gay men and women who considered or attempted suicide follow.

The film then relates the powerfully tragic events of a young Mormon man who committed suicide on the grounds of an LDS church, who pinned instructions to his shirt to not resuscitate him.

Scenes of the squalid conditions homeless gay Mormon teenagers face continue the grim portrait of the church's campaign against homosexuality. Cowan's interviews with two homesless gay teenagers as well as individuals operating a homeless shelter for teenagers in Salt Lake were almost too painful to watch.

Now, certainly the genetic basis for depression and suicidal behavior is not the LDS church's fault. But the church's statements urging gay men to bloody themselves before giving up on their ability to become straight, and their reminders that homosexual relations carried the death penalty under the law of Moses, and that society's modern, accepting view is regrettable (see The Miracle of Forgiveness, by Spencer W. Kimball, available at an LDS Distribution Services store near you), certainly don't help young Mormons trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith.

Neither do pronouncements during LDS General Conference that justify parents for kicking their gay children out on the street.


Sure, the film exposes practices and policies that are embarrassing to the LDS church. But aside from the largely unsubstantiated, but easily true, bit about the church's connection to NOM, I found nothing in the film that wasn't backed up by objective, documented evidence. True, the film loses some of its tight focus on Proposition 8 to explore electroshock therapy at BYU and teenage homelessness in Salt Lake, but for first-time documentary filmmakers, The Mormon Proposition is very nicely done.

More significantly, if there was a person in the Tower Theater Wednesday night who didn't tear up and didn't stand for the final ovation, I'd like to know. The Mormon Proposition, far from the anti-Mormon propaganda piece that many LDS believed it would be, is a powerful story about love, about tender, broken hearts, and about the unspeakable pain that self-righteous ignorance (and arrogance) in the name of religion cause.



*From comments Reed Cowan made after the film showing on Wednesday, January 27, at the Tower Theater.