A Documentary Has Been Released About the Battle Between Advocates and the LDS Church Over Gay Marriage Rhett Wilkinson Follow Jul 17, 2018 · 3 min read

(Spoilers follow.) While it isn’t always even-handed, that doesn’t mean that anyone with interest in the struggles between proponents of same-sex marriage and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shouldn’t see “Church & State.” In their film, Holly Tuckett and Kendall Wilcox chronicle the legal battle over gay marriage in Utah. That was manifest in the case Kitchen v. Herbert. There, Judge Robert Shelby set off a scramble lasting half a year by declaring Utah’s Amendment 3 to be unconstitutional, allowing same-sex marriages in the state to be legal.

It very much features Peggy Tomsic, the attorney chiefly handling the case. She argues that the case set off the eventual Supreme Court decision in June 2015 to legalize gay marriage in each of the United States.

In one remark, Tomsic said this:

“The reason Judge Shelby’s decision became the domino is it was the first federal court to declare that a state could not ban marriage equality.”

Holly Tuckett, co-director of “Church & State”

Though stakeholders interviewed specifically for the film are mostly lead advocates for gay marriage or seeming opponents of the church, the church “declined multiple requests for an interview,” it reads at film’s end.

Wilcox has publicly been an openly gay Mormon.

The film is outright entertaining at times. That includes when Mark Lawrence, without whom there would never have been the case, and Brian Brown, the co-founder and president of the National Organization for Marriage, get into it in the basement of the Utah State Capitol, during a rally for traditional marriage.

“That is a lifelong ambition and I finally met it,” then says Lawrence, who become motivated to move on LGBT rights after surviving lung cancer and not taking social action when living in San Francisco.

Resigned state senator Steve Urquhart says what many long suspected: that the church controls the Utah state legislature.

“Nothing’s about to happen at the Capitol that the church doesn’t 100 percent endorse,” Urquhart remarks, adding that Mormons have a “persecution complex” because of “a doctrine of good and evil.”

Kendall Wilcox, co-director of “Church & State”

Audiences will also learn the behind-the-scenes way how Derek Kitchen and Moudy Sbeity, key figures in the case, became famous.

Even those whose lives have been connected to Mormonism their entire lives may learn new things that LDS prophets said about homosexuality. And details of the battle between the advocates and the State of Utah between Shelby’s ruling and it being upheld. Or a revelation about in-fighting between the advocates.

The personal stories of advocates are also interesting, though it may be where the film teeters off-balance.

You also don’t see shots that must have come from drones or footage of stakeholders’ personal lives every day. Nor do you hear an excellent ominous score.

It seems a given, considering the footage, that Tuckett, Wilcox or their crew were personally at most significant moments of the monthslong ordeal, getting original footage.

Even if you no longer affiliate with the church but enjoy sociality with family and friends as before, you can still find social settings organized by the Utah Valley PostMormons. There, you can find your people. And of course, if you don’t enjoy those relationships like before, the many UVPM events that happen each week can be even life-saving.

Led by wonderful people like Kirsten Barksdale and Larissa Norman, UVPM is also for folks who just are struggling with it or are “never Mormons” seeking a break from the predominant culture. Find their events on Facebook and Meetup.

Locations: Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver, Colo.

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