A GAY FILMMAKER LOOKS AT GAY MARRIAGE: From the New York Times

To anyone who thought that the fight for same-sex marriage rights started this year around Valentine's Day at San Francisco's City Hall, the grainy scenes from 1971 that open the documentary film "Tying the Knot" will be a revelation.

Longhaired protesters in bell bottoms, armed with a guitar and bearing a wedding cake, force their way into the clerk's office in New York's City Hall demanding marriage rights for homosexuals.

After one answers the clerk's phone to decline a request for a heterosexual wedding license, the protesters dance, do a singalong and finally peacefully file out.

"Seeing that people already started fighting for these same rights 30 years ago will surprise many people," said Jim de Seve, the film's director. "I think people will also be surprised by the power of marriage in a legal sense."

News clippings from more recent events in the movement for same-sex marriage rights--including the legalization of gay marriage in Canada and the Netherlands--appear throughout the documentary, which had its premiere this week at the TriBeCa Film Festival, where it will be shown again on Saturday afternoon at 2 at Regal Entertainment's UA Battery Park Stadium 11. Tying the film together is the trail of troubles faced by the surviving partners of two long-term homosexual relationships.

One is a lesbian police officer whose partner, also a policewoman in Tampa, Fla., was gunned down in the line of duty by a robber.

Although the two had been married in a ceremony a decade earlier and were openly acknowledged as a couple at the funeral, Mickie, the surviving partner, faces difficulty getting Lois's pension.

The other story involves an Oklahoma farmer, Sam, whose partner of 22 years, Earl, died, leaving him the ranch in his will. A distant relative contests the will and forces Sam into a court battle in which same-sex partners have no legal standing.

Started more than three years ago with a grant from the Jerome Foundation in St. Paul, the documentary was originally intended to highlight the personal struggle faced by Mr. de Seve and his partner of five years, Kian Tjong, over whether to marry.

"My point of reference for marriage has always been my parents," said Mr. Tjong, who was a producer on the film. "In doing the film I learned about the risks that a couple faces without marriage."

The filmmakers appear in the final cut only as off-camera voices asking occasional interview questions, and the film itself studies the meaning of marriage.

"We still wanted to answer the initial question 'Should we marry?' " Mr. de Seve said. "Yes, we should marry, and we want to marry because that would be society's acceptance of the reality of our lives."

more
posted by Eve at 9:34 AM | Link |

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home