As the landmark U.S. Supreme Count ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide reverberated, the Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF), which ended the week prior to the ruling, showed prescience in showcasing a documentary about the early fight for marriage equality that built the foundation for the entire marriage equality movement.
“The State of Marriage,” directed by Jeff Kaufman, a former Vermont-based journalist, examines the grassroots effort in that state in the 1990s that paved the way for marriage equality across the country. It focusses on three women — small town Vermont lawyers Beth Robinson and Susan Murray who partnered with Boston lawyer Mary Bonauto of GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defender) for a two-decade long struggle. Despite fierce opposition, Vermont became the first state to grant same-sex couples legal recognition through a groundbreaking 1999 State Supreme Court decision, and the first to legalize marriage equality by legislative vote in 2009. Bonauto was also the lawyer who won marriage quality in Massachusetts and eventually argued and won the case before the Supreme Court.
“Three great women did the work. They are inspiring, incredible, modest human beings who didn’t go around talking about what they did,” says Marcia Ross, the film’s producer who is married to Kaufman. Without documenting what happened in Vermont, Ross says, “there’s a danger that ‘alternate histories of the marriage equality movement will emerge.”
Ross, a Los Angeles-based casting director for movies, says it was while she was reading Evan Wolfson’s book “Why Marriage Matters” that she felt compelled to travel with Kaufman to Vermont to shoot the rallies, court hearings and door-to-door efforts of marriage equality activists to change hearts and minds one person at a time. Vermont was a great example of grassroots work, Kaufman says, and the documentary made sure both sides were represented without portraying the marriage opponents as villains.
“It was Mary Bonauto who said that if she is asking people to recognize her humanity, then she had to recognize theirs,” recalled Kaufmann, explaining his film’s even-handed approach.
“The State of Marriage” will continue on the film festival circuit. It was one of many LGBT-themed documentaries that were were among the highlights of the 17th annual PIFF which ended June 21.
During the five-day festival, the creators three documentaries — “The State of Marriage,” David Thorpe’s “Do I Sound Gay?” and “Larry Kramer In Love and Anger,” which is coming soon to HBO — not only introduced their films at various screenings but also engaged in a lively panel discussion moderated by Matthew Breen, editor of the Advocate.
Larry Kramer, frail but still feisty, was seen around town and participated in a book signing but didn’t attend the panel talk. The film’s director, Jean Carlomusto, a longtime LGBT and AIDS activist who has known Kramer for years, told the panel audience that her aim was to make a “warts and all” portrait of Kramer, an LGBT icon but “not a saint,” she said. During the course of shooting, the focus changed because Kramer was ‘in the battle of his life to stay alive,’ said Carlomusto. Both Kramer and his husband, David Webster, encouraged Carlomusto to continue filming even in the hospital room while Kramer was ill in the interest of an honest depiction.
Thorpe’s film will have a theatrical release starting in July. Although on the surface it seems less politically-charged than the other two docs, it movingly and often amusingly examines issues of identity and self-esteem among many gay men who are self-conscious about the way they speak.
“We live in a sexist culture,” said Thorpe, adding that the fear of a feminine-sounding voice is “a symbol of the closet.”
