For the Bible Tells Me So

A documentary that was a huge hit at the Sundance Film Festival. It talks about the passage in the Bible where it says that gay lovers are an "abomination". (For the record I'm gay). It introduces us to a number of religious families who have to deal with their sons or daughters coming out. They have to deal with accepting their children who are not accepted by their religion.

Strong, powerful but gentle documentary. It talks to priests and other experts about what the Bible REALLY says and how it should be perceived. The movie isn't in your face. It quietly points out that the Bible DOES condemn gays...but it also says eating shellfish is an abomination too. Also it should be perceived as when it was written--hundreds of years ago.

The families introduced don't all come to accept their children's sexual orientation and there are some unhappy endings...but this is a strong and very truthful film. Everyone should see this one. Most of my audience was in tears by the end.

I only give it a 9 because all the families are introduced in a confusing manner and there's a REAL out of place badly animated cartoon halfway through the film. Still this is a definite must see.

I attended the premiere of the movie, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO, at Sundance on January 21, 2007. It is a powerful movie that opens for discussion the impact of religious teaching on homosexuals in America. It gives support to those within the American public who know and deeply care for some gays in their lives and innately feel that God loves all his children and so should they. Every church congregation and Sunday School Class should see this movie as one audience and then have their own discussion. I believe the result would stimulate an acceptance not heretofore anticipated. The naturalness and obvious commitment of the films director and participants make the impact dramatically strong.

The sad thing about For The Bible Tells Me So is that the people who need to see this most are the ones who will be forbidden by their church to watch this very timely documentary. But for those who do get to see it they will be inspired and uplifted.

As a gay 60 year old man who has lived in the last half of the last century I saw many marvelous changes at how Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered people have been viewed in American society and in the world at large. Growing up as I did in the fifties and sixties it would never occur to me to do something as courageous as young Jacob Reinert, not only coming out in Mankato, Minnesota, but bringing his parents into the fight for equality.

For too many still gay is something where emotion kicks in and reason just flies out the door. Why is it so, religion and those few bible verses put down for an ancient tribe to make sure they multiplied and dominate, have become the touchstones to justify all kinds of hatred and bigotry.

A distinguished group of religious scholars talk about how this came to be in western monotheist religions. There not names you know associated with Christianity or Judaism because there not on the air and in your pocket to stay on the air. They present quite a contrast with the bible thumpers where we see video going back as far as Billy Sunday.

The man who comes in for the most scorn is James Dobson, pop psychologist and big kingpin on the religious right. Young Jacob Reinert attempts to confront him, but the most moving story in the film concerned Mary Ann Wallner who listened to Dobson's advice about rejecting her lesbian daughter who later kills herself.

For The Bible Tells Me So makes it abundantly clear the political nature of the anti-gay religious right. GLBT people are the 'other' the straw villains you create to justify why the populace should empower your crowd. As Hitler did to the Jews, so the religious right has done to us.

My favorite moment in the film was when one of the scholars challenges these religious leaders to obey Jesus's commandment to sell all you have and give it to the poor and then you can follow him. Talk about selective Bible reading, can you see a Pat Robertson doing that? It can never be forgotten that these folks place different emphasis on certain bible verses as opposed to others.

My working life consisted in large degree of working at NYS Crime Victims Board as an openly gay investigator. I saw the most manifest examples of anti-gay hate, culminating in violence with serious injury and death. The religious right who keep talking about how our sin is so horrible are the ones who give justification to those who would do us bodily harm. I wish they could see their handiwork from where I sat for 23 years.

For The Bible Tells Me So, is an excellent documentary that will hopefully win an Oscar in that category next year. And this review is dedicated to the young people from Soul Force I met and broke bread with in my city this past spring. As long as there are people like these confronting the hate and getting the message out, I have no worries about a movement or its ultimate success.

While this is a nicely encouraging docu, I wasn't all that happy with the cartoon in the middle illustrating how science suggests homosexuality is part of our genetic imprint. Maybe that's because I'm from Germany and half gypsy, which under the laws of the most unfortunate period of that country's history would have meant that I am ethnically impure and therefore not fit to live; racial biology in Nazi Germany heavily relied on sociological and physical surveys to prove a link between criminal or anti-social behavior and race, as a justification for eradicating these elements. I therefore consider the gay gene theory a rather double-edged sword: while it might counter the assessment of many fundamentalist Christians that being gay is a choice, and therefore 'curable', it could also be used as an argument for total annihilation if times should ever get as rough as in, say, the Weimar Republic: they can't help being perverts, so let's kill them all (and enrich ourselves with their possessions in the process).

Fact is, sexuality is a very complex thing, in which the difference between choice and innate need cannot be clearly drawn; it would be rather dull if it was. Think of your own sexual preferences: don't we all have things we'd rather do or not do? How much of this is part of our nature, and how much of it is part of our choice? It's impossible to say, right? So it would seem to me that a more neutral approach might have been more fitting here: so fundamentalist Christians say gays make a 'choice' to be gay. Well, so what? Even if they make a choice, does that hurt anyone? Should anybody be ostracized for the choices they make?

And while the stories of the interviews were nicely chosen in respect to the encouraging message they are meant to deliver, I can't help but thinking that a lot of the realities of gay life have been omitted. After all, what drives people to question their homosexuality and regard it as something that must be cured? Yes, of course, church plays a very important role in this. But all guys I have known who tried to 'reform' themselves did so because they felt as outcasts in the gay community itself, either because they felt not attractive enough or because they couldn't cope with the difficulty of establishing a real relationship; I know one guy who got married to a woman for the latter purpose, and he says he's happy. I also know the counter example. So I would say that it's neither in my nor in anybody else's judgment to say reform is only denial, as long as nobody gets pressured into doing it.

But OK, that dilemma is not what the film is about, it's directed towards an audience influenced by or familiar with fundamentalist Christians, and as such it does a really nice job to point out the futility of their arguments. Only if you're gay, not really religious and just watching this to see what makes these people tick, you're none the wiser: the real question to me is why homophobes draw on that issue so much. Like, isn't there enough other stuff that's more indisputably wrong with America that they should be more concerned about? The hate is in the film, but I still don't get where it all comes from.

It was enough for me to hear the demented ramblings of such a paragon of virtue like Jimmy Swaggart, to understand the whole evangelical, religious right. A dash of hard core nationalism and frantic flag waving, a little song, a little dance, easy answers to some of the hardest questions, and when you mix it all up- evangelical Christianity. These preachers calmly dismiss most of compassionate teachings of Jesus Christ, and dig into the Old Testament( by the way, the other people's holy book)randomly. Pick and choose few rules, mostly concerning the gay people, and there it is. They are the righteous, and we are sinners. It must be great to be that simple, to blindly follow the religious music man, and to be stunned when they fail to live up to their so high standards. My religion is much more complex, and it's a life long struggle to do good and be a better person. Good and very useful documentary.