"This is What Love in Action Looks Like"
An Amazing Documentary
Amos Lassen
I just had the good luck to see a film that is currently on the festival circuit and decided to review it now instead of waiting and letting what I saw sink in. Set in Memphis in 2005, Zach, a 16 year old wrote on his My Space blog that he had just come out to his parents and they did not take it very well. In fact the very next day they began it make plans for their son—they decided to send him a Fundamentalist Christian program that works with gay teens and turns them straight. The film follows Zach and what happened to him and how his friends and the LGBT community stood up for Zach and began daily protests at the Refuge program at Love in Action. I do not remember reading or hearing about this anywhere but that could be because I was just not paying attention—after all 2005 was a bad year for me with Katrina changing my life in ways I could never have dreamed of. And now that I am living in Little Rock, just two hours away from Memphis, I wonder why I didn't know more about this. Be that as it may, all of us will be hearing about it with the release of this excellent documentary from Morgan Jon Fox.
This is one of the most amazing and interesting documentaries that I have seen and that with the fact that it has a very strong message makes it so important. A novel approach, Fox begins his film with pages from Zach's online blog and it is heartbreaking to read that a 16 year old wrote:
May 29, 2005 The World Coming To An Abrupt Stop Current mood: depressed "Today, my mother, father, and I had a very long 'talk' in my room where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays. They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me" and then he learns that he is going into a program that sees homosexuality as an addictive behavior and therefore it can be cured by using the necessary methods. Zach's parents hoped that gayness, his addiction would be cured and when he wrote this in his blog his friends rallied to support him. Soon Zach's story was not heard about in Memphis but it also began to appear in the nationwide media. Zach himself could not speak openly about what happened since the program would not allow him to have any kind of access to the media and he was not allowed to talk to his friends who were not in the program. His friends mobilized and brought in others and protests began. At the same time people everywhere wanted to know how he was doing. He was to be at the Refuge for eight weeks and by the time his "reorganization" was doing OK, people began to worry.
It did not take long for national news stations to become involved and the international press also came on board. The film follows the events that caused the story to go national and then international. Ultimately the protests were successful in that the state of Tennessee investigated Love in Action and ordered it closed only to cause Love in Action turn around and file suit against the state. It is a fascinating story and a wonderful look at a concerned group o people that reacted to parents shaming their child and having him put into a radical institution that cannot do what it says it can. We also hear from Zach himself and he had decided that he didn't want to be contacted after his stay at Refuge.
We are privy to the requirements of Love in Action/Refuge and they are shocking. Like Zach says, "it was like boot camp, only worse". At the institution (and I use that word loosely), young gay men and women are drilled on how to think and act "straight".
I commend the author for having the courage to make this film especially in Tennessee where the state legislature has banned any reference to homosexuality from the school curriculum. I understand that the film has been six years in the making and Fox has every reason to be proud of what he has done. The film looks at a piece of American history as well as a call to us to realize that there is still much more that we need to fight for. Fox has been very lucky to have the film accepted to the major LGBT festivals especially to Frameline 35 in San Francisco. If you have a chance to see it, do so by all means otherwise toy will have to wait for the DVD release.
In 2007, Refuge was shut down and in fact the director, John Smid, not only left Love in Action but wrote a letter of apology to those he has hurt. There is so much more that I could say but to do would take away from your experience of seeing the film and that is something that I will not do so.
