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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 21, 2002)
juna 21. 2002- 7 F IL M ..........▼.......... Force of change A young docum entary filmmaker cuts to the heart of the turm oil when faith and homosexuality collide by C hristopher M c Q uain to remain an active church member. During one devastating interview session, he confides, “As hard as it is to have poor health and to deal with the pain and discomfort, it does not come close to the difficulty I had and the pain I felt in having to reconcile my homo sexuality with my religion.” It’s only through a personal favor from a connected friend that Steve is allowed to remain an active Mormon. H g l Jg ost often,” Oldham says, “gays who v come out don’t want to leave, but 1 W I they’re almost forced out because the two lifestyles just don’t serve one another. In M orm onism ...it’s not a passive thing. You’re not just going to church. You’re really involved in community service...and all o f a sudden, the calls stop coming.” She doesn’t necessarily attribute this prob lem to just her religion, however. “Homosexu als, just in general, are not being treated fairly by any religion. 1 certainly don’t think it’s unique to Mormonism.” Oldham’s goal, she insists, was not to depict the Smiths as pawns in the great Mormonism vs. Homosexuality debate. “T he film doesn’t bash Mormonism, and it also doesn’t put it up on this pedestal," she says. “I .. .wanted the Smiths to tell their own story. I didn’t want it to he Tasha Old ham’s view on the family.... I didn’t want it to be aHiut this fight between the Mormon church and homosexuality, which it could’ve been.” The most important and thought-provoking issue arising from the many seeming contradic Morm on, married and gay: T h e Sm iths are one of film ’s finest examples of the intersection of tions of The Smith Family is the reclamation by dis faith, homosexuality and personal definitions of family sidents— gay and questioning, like Steve Smith, or straight and questioning, like Kim Smith and Old ham herself—of the religion that seems to reject nine years when Steve revealed he’d been sexu | nitially, it wasn’t filmmaker Tasha Oldham ’s them. “I grew up incredibly sheltered,” Oldham ally abused as an adolescent, a traumatic inci plan to make a documentary about the shares, “and 1 thought homosexuality was wrong, dent to which he initially attributed his sexual Sm ith family. But when Steve Sm ith, a mar too, because that’s what I was taught.” encounters with men throughout their marriage. ried Mormon gay man with A ID S, and his Life experience has taught her something As Oldham ’s interviews with the couple spouse, Kim, also HIV-positive, decided to a) else. “I moved out to L.A., and the most indicate, there were inklings of marital stress remain married and h) adhere to their faith, incredible human beings I’ve met [are] gay— long before Steve came clean. T he couple were Oldham ’s circuitous quest to document a sub the most accepting and nonjudgmental— and I active in the church and seemed to he happily ject that would highlight the diversity and gray thought, ‘This just could not be wrong.’ I know raising their kids, and we’re shown extensive areas of Mormonism got the better of her. that with every fiber of my being, and that’s video footage from earlier in the marriage of T h e fascinating result is T he Smith Family, why I have my own issues with the church.” Steve enthusiastically participating in myriad which kicks off the 15th season of B B S ’s But the filmmaker doesn’t believe these activities with his sons. P O .V . documentary series June 25. issues need to continue to he mutually exclu Meanwhile, their physical relationship (what “I was doing a documentary about the diverse sive. “I don’t believe in throwing out the baby Kim calls “the fireworks department”) was always lives of Mormon women,” Oldham explains in with the hath water. Because I don’t agree on troubled. So much so, in fact, that Kim confesses an interview with Just Out. “I grew up in Salt every single thing the church teaches doesn’t part of her was relieved to find out Steve was Lake, and when I moved to Los Angeles, people mean I can’t be a Mormon.” gay; she finally realized the problem wasn’t that were very fascinated with the idea that I was She believes changes she was unattractive. Mormon, and they often had a lot of misconcep will come, hut not with There’s a stark contrast, tions and stereotypes about who Mormons were, out a change of heart on indeed, between those idyl particularly in regard to their women." the part of the Mormon lic Smith home videos and T he 30-year-old practicing Mormon, who population. “T h e family Oldham’s recent interviews supervises scripts for films and television, says thought they were the with Kim and the very ill she also “wanted to cov er.. .homosexuality with only family going through Steve, their sons and some in the faith, because it was kind o f a hot topic this because at the time, extended family. Though that wasn’t being discussed.” Although she 11 years ago, they didn’t Steve characterizes his wanted to research lesbians, she explains that know aKiut Family Fel actions as “unclean” and “one of the criteria was I wanted the women to lowship, they didn’t know expresses immense guilt he active in the church, and they kept leaving aKxit Affirmation,” two over infecting Kim, he final the church, so that didn’t quite pan out.” ly does accept his sexual ori Filmmaker Tasha Oldham believes change gay Mormon support She then turned to women who had mar groups. “T h a t’s really why entation as something sepa comes from people, not church doctrine ried gay or questioning men. “I met a woman Kim wanted this, so that rate from his molestation. named Allison Donn, and, as sort of a flip, off- people would be discussing it.” Kim is also eventually supportive of Steve the-wall com m ent, I said she was this amazing T hat’s why Oldham wanted it, too. “That (and even o f Salt Lake’s gay community), woman. And she said: ‘You wanna meet some would he my goal— for people to become more despite tne couple’s many conflicts and the gru one amazing? You gotta meet Kim Sm ith .’ ” open-minded and more tolerant. I mean, 1 know eling stages of denial and acceptance. However, the church is not going to change their stand Kim’s family seems only grudgingly supportive; n 1999, Kim Sm ith was living with her own point on Mormon doctrine, and I would never her father admits he “would’ve liked to hit him HIV-positive status and her husband’s rapidly have the delusion of grandeur that that would upside the head with a shovel,” and the progressing illness while coping with the ever occur.. .it was more for the people to change Sm iths’ eldest son is equivocal and elusive. labyrinthine medical system, the turmoil of their viewpoints, and I think that’s where the T he most potentially controversial aspect of their situation and raising two teen-age hoys. force of change is going to come.” J H the story— and what really makes the Smiths Simultaneously, she was trying to keep their utterly fascinating—»is that, feelings and realiza highly unorthodox family circumstances in T he S mith F amily airs at 10 p.m. June 25 on OPB. tions aside, Kim and Steve stay in what K>th good standing with what many people would admit is a sexually unfulfilling marriage because consider a highly orthodox religion. 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