![\"ForTheBible\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/ftb1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFor the Bible Tells Me So (2007) is a film that explores\u00a0the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community.<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s Up, Doc? Revisiting\u00a0For the Bible Tells Me So:<\/em><\/p>\n I live in New York City, and I\u2019m married to a man. We have a nice life, my husband and I. We have solid jobs, a great circle of friends, and a washer and dryer. We have our little struggles. We worry about our aging parents, bicker over the virtues of Reality TV, and wonder if our cat is truly happy. We\u2019re allowed the luxuries of these niceties and tiny worries in part because we\u2019re allowed to openly be who we are. We\u2019re lucky enough to live in a state where we can marry one another, and just live our lives. My friends and I often talk about living in \u201cthe bubble of New York City.\u201d My husband and I even got married ten minutes down the street from where we live.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re so lucky to live in New York,\u201d I thought on our wedding day at Brooklyn\u2019s City Clerk\u2019s office. Watching the documentary\u00a0For the Bible Tells Me So<\/i>\u00a0reminds me of our luck.<\/p>\n Initially released in 2007,\u00a0Bible<\/i>\u00a0follows the lives of five families, all from \u201cthe South\u201d or, at least, religiously conservative. The doc recounts the journeys these families faced after a member of their tribe came out of the closet. Though nearly seven years old, the film feels as fresh and timely as ever, particularly in our age of possible DOMA and Prop8 repeals.<\/p>\n Beginning with the iconic pie-bombing of gay-opponent Anita Bryant,\u00a0Bible<\/i>\u00a0dishes out a big helping of hate-filled clips, clearly setting up \u2018the enemy.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cGod hates this country,\u201d shouts an angry white male, concluding his quick commentary on the \u2018abomination\u2019 that is homosexuality.<\/p>\n Both the pie-bomb and the shouting occur in the first ninety seconds of\u00a0Bible<\/i>, yet the overall film is not as hostile in its tone. (The closest it comes to reclaiming this level of hostility is much later, during some overly-dramatic voiceover readings of hate mail received by one its subjects.)<\/p>\n The families featured in\u00a0Bible<\/i>\u00a0each have a quiet power. The heads of each clan carefully set the stage of the upcoming gay reveal, defining what their belief in God means to them. In each case it means a great deal, with parents being church-going folk, or US Presidential hopefuls. (Dick Gephardt and his daughter Chrissy are among the film\u2019s subjects.)<\/p>\n What struck me most while watching\u00a0Bible<\/i>, was the shocking difference in communication styles used by the harried parents and their freshly-out offspring. The parents permeate a conflicted, emotional cadence, still sounding as raw and vulnerable as the day their lives were thrown gay curveballs. Their adult gay children, on the other hand, are straightforward, realistic and methodical. (In one scene, an Ivy League lesbian calmly recounts missing the close, honest bond she once had with her mom, now sullied by her gay reveal. The scene ends with her puzzled mom saying, \u201cWe gonna fix this.\u201d)<\/p>\n These sequences, the actual \u201ccoming out\u201d stories, have a riveting, organic momentum. So much so, that it left me wishing the filmmakers had calmed down a bit on the ultra-quick editing and excessive uses of stock footage in the first half of the doc. It\u2019s as if they felt they needed to appease an attention-deficient MTV generation, relentlessly flashing new clips over people\u2019s stories. Particularly in the beginning of the film, I don\u2019t recall a single camera shot that lasted more than ten seconds. The film could\u2019ve been even more powerful, and certainly more personable, if the subjects were given some real face time.<\/p>\n Another misfire? As many documentaries have done before and since,\u00a0Bible<\/i>\u00a0plops a four-minute animated sequence right in the middle of the film. The cartoon discusses the science of homosexuality, complete with two stereotypical gay characters, \u201cGeorge\u201d and \u201cMartha\u201d. The animated bit actually provides some interesting facts (the more sons a mother gives birth to, the higher the chance that each coming son with be gay), yet it\u2019s in such stark contrast to rest of film\u2019s style, you can\u2019t help but question if it\u2019s just too quirky for its own good.<\/p>\n Thankfully, the film gets back on track after the cartoon in a big way, tackling specific biblical passages. Give the film big kudos for not taking cheap shots at the naysayers of homosexuality. On the contrary, the film presents its negating facts to religious opinion without any smarm, sarcasm or Dan Savage-style righteousness many contemporaries use nowadays. Even in its most condemning points, like the Bible\u2019s claim that eating rabbit \u2013 like homosexuality \u2013 is an abomination, are presented with a calm, respectful smile.<\/p>\n The final chapters of\u00a0Bible<\/i>\u00a0quickly culminate into some lovely tear-jerking scenes by daring to provide efficient happy endings for all involved, even for a parent whose gay child has committed suicide. Each story ties itself up with a sense of understanding and, in some cases, acts of extreme social activism. It does feel rushed, but it never feels cheap.<\/p>\n For the Bible Tells Me So<\/i>\u00a0can still stand proudly with some of the finest LGBT documentaries out there. After a frantic first half, the film allows itself to breathe and tells its stories. In those tales, we witness the arcs of religious beliefs, the importance of acceptance, and the enduring faith in humanity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Follow Brian on Twitter: @brianmasefield<\/em><\/p>\n Review | Brian Masefield For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) is a film that explores\u00a0the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community. What\u2019s Up, Doc? Revisiting\u00a0For the Bible Tells Me So: I live in New York\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,39,40,44,41,43,38],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-columnist","tag-gay","tag-literature","tag-nyc","tag-opinion-2","tag-posturemag","tag-queer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Headshots-0012-e1370358055302.jpg?fit=300%2C431","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6QBV8-7W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions\/848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}