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“Bible Believing Christian’s Response to OUT IN THE SILENCE” Promotes Anti-Transgender Violence
September 01, 2010
A Dispatch from Coudersport:
by Joe Wilson, August, 31, 2010:
Diane Gramley sat peacefully behind Robert Wagner in the Coudersport Public Library as the retired physician shared his views on transgender individuals with the assembled audience. “I’m gonna put a ball bat in my car,” he said, “and if I ever see a guy [Wagner refuses to use proper pronouns] coming out of a bathroom that my granddaughter’s in, I’m gonna use the ball bat on him.” Moments later he added: “In the good old days, before ‘she-males’ existed, they just called such people perverts.”
Gramley is no stranger to such ideas. As President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Family Association, a ‘traditional family values’ organization based in Mississippi, she spends much of her time planting similar seeds of suspicion about the dangers posed by “men who think they are women,” her disparaging term for transgender females. She also crusades relentlessly against what she and the AFA call the “homosexual agenda” and the type of legal protections that her and Dr. Wagner’s threatening rhetoric suggests are needed for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.
Gramley was in Coudersport, a small town of 2,600 residents in the sparsely populated north-central part of the state known as the Pennsylvania Wilds, as a special guest of Dr. Wagner for what he titled “A Bible Believing Christian’s Response to OUT IN THE SILENCE,” my documentary film about the quest for inclusion, fairness and equality for LGBT people in the small town where I was born and raised, Oil City, PA, just a two-hour drive from Coudersport.
Gramley, who also happens to call the Oil City area home, plays a central role in OUT IN THE SILENCE as a result of the firestorm of controversy she helped to ignite in opposition to the publication of my same-sex marriage announcement in the local paper. It was that controversy that compelled my partner, Dean Hamer, and I to go back to my hometown with our cameras to document what life is like there for LGBT people, and to show hopeful and inspiring stories about the growing movement for equality.
The film was produced in partnership with Penn State Public Broadcasting, received support from the Sundance Institute, premiered at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, screened in Tribeca Cinemas Doc Series, and has been broadcast on PBS stations around the country. We’re now using it as an educational tool in a grassroots campaign to help raise LGBT visibility and to bring people together in small towns like Oil City and Coudersport to begin building bridges across the gaps that have divided families, friends, and entire communities on these issues for far too long.
As part of this campaign, OUT IN THE SILENCE had screened just a month earlier for a standing-room-only crowd in the Coudersport Public Library despite vehement opposition from Dr. Wagner and the efforts of the local Tea Party and a small group of fundamentalist preachers to shut the event down and have the library ‘de-funded’ for making its space available for such a program.
Wagner’s “Bible Believing Response,” he told the crowd of approximately 60 local church people, “was intended to expose the filmmakers’ real agenda and to question the directors’ assertion that the community should tolerate alternative lifestyles.”
During the two hour program, Wagner asked special guest Gramley a few questions about her experiences as a minor subject of the film, but he used her more as a prop, seated silently behind him, providing an odd sort of legitimacy as he put forth offensive theories and mischaracterizations about LGBT people, including that “AIDS is the gay plague” and “gays can’t have families.”
Dean and I were in the library for the presentation. We made the six-hour drive to Coudersport from our home in Washington, DC because I wanted to bear witness to this event, to experience for myself, if only for a few hours, what it feels like to be so close to such willful ignorance and brazen cruelty.
As I sat there, listening to ‘amens,’ snickering laughter, and even a roar of approval from the people around me when asked if they agree with the AFA assertions that there “should be legal sanctions against homosexual behavior” and “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office,” I felt a sadness unlike any I have known before. A sadness for those who fall prey to such bigoted and hostile bombast, who carry the feelings these things stir into their homes and family relationships, and for the communities that suffer the sometimes-violent consequences of such mean-spirited divisiveness.
But as I looked at Gramley, unmoved next to Wagner, condoning the ugliness without a word of protest, I thought of all the courageous people who have attended OUT IN THE SILENCE Campaign events over the past many months in far flung places, including there in Coudersport, who refuse to be silent anymore, who are working for change in their communities against great odds, and I was inspired all over again.
It is in their spirit that we will continue our campaign to speak out in the silence and to help build the movement for fairness and equality in small towns and rural communities across America.
I hope you’ll join us! Learn more at OutintheSilence.com
Daily Kos: “An Amazing Project That Has The Potential To Open Many People’s Minds”
September 01, 2010
Horrifying: “Bible-believing Christian” Spews Anti-LGBT Venom, Threatens Violence
by Chrislove—Sep 01, 2010 at 09:50:48 AM PDT
And to think, I was having a pretty good day.
I got on the computer a few minutes ago, checked my Facebook newsfeed, and I saw a link to a video clip (I’ll share it below). I watched it, and I’m just…I don’t know what word I’m looking for. Angry? Sad? Maybe just disturbed. Probably all three.
A little background before I share the video. The video was taken at an event in Coudersport, Pennsylvania (which really contributes to my emotional response to the video, since Coudersport is a small town just a hop, skip, and a jump away from where I live) held by Robert Wagner, a self-described “Bible-believing Christian.” The meeting was meant to be a response to a screening in Coudersport of the film Out in the Silence, a documentary telling the story of a teenager in Oil City, Pennsylvania, facing extreme bullying because he was gay.
Full Story Here on Daily Kos
“Out In The Silence” is a Powerful Documentary - The Huffington Post
August 20, 2010
By Joan E. Dowlin:
Last Tuesday night I attended a screening of the film Out in the Silenceat a local library in Stratford, PA. It was a very moving and transformational evening. The movie was very powerful in its message as was the question and answer discussion afterward.
The documentary by Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer chronicles the journey of Joe to his boyhood home of Oil City, a small town in western Pennsylvania, after declaring his wedding to Dean, his gay partner, in his hometown paper. Wilson shares the written reactions he received, mostly negative from the hometown crowd. But one letter particularly caught his attention.
It was from Kathy Springer who asked him for help in dealing with the abuse, physical and emotional, that her openly gay sixteen year old son, CJ, was receiving from his classmates at Joe’s old high school.
Joe and Dean decide to travel to Oil City and document the experience. What was produced is a provocative film shining a light on small town America and the harassments that openly gay teens and citizens have to endure.
Besides exposing some unpleasant prejudices, it is also a documentary that is filled with hope for a transformative future. The friendly relationship that develops between Joe and a previously borderline homophobic Pastor Nickos and his wife, Diana is uplifting. It shows that it is possible to open the hearts and minds of those who have been influenced by evangelical thinking.
Also inspiring is the story of Roxanne and Linda, two lesbians who live in the house right next to where Joe grew up. As community activists who began neighborhood “clean up days,” they gained the respect and support of many in the town. When they bought an old theater with dreams of renovating it, they experienced some opposition from Diane, the Head of the PA Chapter of the American Family Association who ran a radio campaign against them. The amazing thing is that many neighbors came to their support and helped out with the renovations. It was a joyous occasion when they opened the new theater to a sell out crowd. Linda was so moved she could hardly speak.
As for CJ and his mother, after receiving the cold shoulder from the local school board, they presented their story to local representatives and were encouraged to go to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). Eventually, they won a court settlement against the school officials and board.
What struck me in this film is CJ’s appealing personality. He is a typical teenager who likes sports and cars who did not deserve the abuse he had to endure.
At the screening, we were introduced to another local teen activist, Joey Kemmerling and his mom, Joyce Mundy, who shared some of his difficult experiences about being openly gay in high school.
I stood up and thanked him for coming out and shared that when I was in high school “gay” was a word that was never spoken. It took me until I was 29 to accept that I am a lesbian and I regret those years that I wasted living a lie in the closet. We have come a long way since then and I am so appreciative of the courage that Joey and CJ have displayed.
I was also moved by the support shown by the large number of straight people in the audience. Many were from PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). I never fully realized until that evening how important group support is. Having heterosexual allies for gays today is similar to white activists backing blacks during the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1960s. It is powerful to feel that support and be recognized as a human being and reminded that we are all one.
All in all, it was an encouraging event and a film I highly recommend seeing. It shows that no matter how far we have come in our human rights campaign, we have more work to do. And if we approach others with an open mind, inner strength and humility we can change the world, one soul at a time. This movie has a “happy beginning.”
More Details: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-dowlin/out-in-the-silence-is-a-p_b_680900.html
Huffington Post: Proposition 8 Dispatch From the Culture Wars Front
August 19, 2010
Intro by Bill Lichtenstein:
The US District Court decision on August 4, overturning California’s Proposition 8 and its ban on same sex marriages was a watershed moment for proponents of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans.
Within hours of the landmark decision, pundits ranging from MSNBC’s liberal Rachel Maddow to Fox’s ultra-right wing Glenn Beck, began postulating that the ruling signaled a new “post-homophobic” era in America.
Maddow, who among news anchors may well be America’s most trusted lesbian, led her show for the two nights after the decision with celebratory coverage of the ruling. She went so far as to taunt GOP leaders for being uncharacteristically quiet during the 24 hours after the US District Court decision.
Speaking presumably to Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and John Boehner, among others, Maddow asked at the top of her August 5 program, “Where were the outraged Republicans? Where are you? You guys used to be so good at this.”
At the same time, Glenn Beck, who is to liberal causes what “Mikey” was to breakfast foods in the 1970s Life cereal ads (“he hates everything”), turned heads by telling Fox’s Bill O’Reilly that “I don’t think marriage, that the government actually has anything to do with . . . [what] is a religious right,” and then added a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?”
In the wake of the decision, both sides held their breath as Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker gave opponents of the ruling six days to appeal it. On August 16, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals left in place Prop 8 and its same sex marriage ban in California, as the case winds its way through its appeal process toward the Supreme Court, where it may ultimately be decided. Depsite forcing Golden State gay and lesbian couples to put their nuptial plans on hold, this delay has one possible plus for same sex marriage proponents.
Loyola Law School professor Richard Hasen told the LA Times , that “If this case takes another year to get to the U.S. Supreme Court, there could be more states that adopt same-sex marriage and more judicial opinions that reach that conclusion.”
In fact, despite the dramatic victory in the federal court, the battle over same sex marriages in the US continues to rage at the state and local levels.
Streak of “31 Straight Victories” Brought to an End
Over the past decade, gay marriage opponents have racked up an impressive winning streak of 31 straight victories against no defeats when the issue of same sex marriages has been on the ballot in state elections. Loss number 31 was in Maine, on November 3, 2009, when voters repealed a law that had allowed gay unions. The 31-0 streak was brought to an abrupt end by Judge Walker’s Prop 8 decision.
As recent events have been developing in San Francisco, filmmakers Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson have been traveling the country with their feature documentary film, Out in the Silence. The film captures the remarkable chain of events starting with the announcement of their wedding, which ignited a firestorm of controversy in the small Pennsylvania hometown Wilson left long ago.
The documentary tells the story of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights in rural America, and premiered at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, was broadcast on PBS stations across the country, and has been shown at over 400 community and school screenings accompanied by public discussions.
Currently, Dean, who has worked for the past three decades at the National Institutes of Health, and received international attention after the journal “Science” published his research in 1993 that he had identified a “gay gene,” and Joe, a human rights activist and native of Oil City, Pennsylvania, where the documentary takes place, are traveling with the film through all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, a state that prohibits same sex marriage.
The following is Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson’s “dispatch from the front” regarding the latest battle in America’s 2010 culture wars:
The images of the plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case standing on the steps of the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco during the trial, were typical of the now standard media portrayal of gay America: out, proud, comfortably middle class, living in a big city or suburb.
But there is another side to gay America that is rarely seen. It takes place in conservative, often deeply religious small towns and rural communities where those who are found, or even perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, strive to fit in rather than to stand out. For these people coming out means risking their families, friends, jobs and livelihoods, their safety and at times even their very lives.
Our documentary film, Out in the Silence, focuses on the harrowing, ultimately successful battle waged by a 16 year-old gay student and his mother against recalcitrant school authorities when the teen was brutally gay bashed for courageously coming out at his rural high school.
We’ve reached half of our goal of screening the film in all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, and most of the events have been greeted with enthusiasm. But in Coudersport, a town of 2,650 people along the northern border of the state, we received an email from Keturah Cappadonia, a town librarian just two days before the scheduled screening informing us that the event would have to be canceled. The reason, as the Harrisburg Patriot-News, later reported, was that ‘after several hours of people pointing their fingers in her face and telling her she was going to hell, Keturah Cappadonia cracked, and was reduced to tears by the experience.’
The controversy resulted from, no surprise, an alliance between fundamentalist Christians and right-wing conservatives. Pastor Pete Tremblay of the Coudersport Free Methodist Church told a local news web site that the film was ‘designed to get people to give up their convictions based on the word of God and accept these practices as equivalent to God’s design for human sexuality. It is propaganda.’
Pastor Tremblay went on to request that people ‘call the library…and in a Christian manner inform them that this event is not a benefit to our community, and ask that it be canceled.’
He was joined in his condemnation of the film by George Brown, president of the Potter County Tea Party, who said he was upset at having to be ‘attacked for our beliefs at a public library we support with our tax money. This is wrong and cannot be tolerated.’
Brown also told the web site that $1.5 million of local taxes was used to support the library (the actual number is $42,000), and went on to say that ‘Should this agenda be continued, we may need to ask if the library should be defunded.’
That appeared to be one threat over the line for the library board. Following a quick phone meeting, they unanimously decided that the screening would go ahead as originally planned and issued a public statement for the library patrons:
The mission of any public library is to serve a diverse community with varying opinions about what is and is not objectionable material . . . We believe the library would fail in its mission if it did not provide information about ideas or topics that each of us might find uncomfortable at some level . . . American libraries are the cornerstone of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere.
And so two days later, on the evening of July 28, 2010, a standing room only crowd gathered in Coudersport’s public library, made up of mainstream members of the community along with lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual, transgender and cisgender, young, middle-aged and senior citizens, together with a goodly handful of reporters, all gathered together in a public place and ready to talk about a subject that had divided their community for far too long.
As soon as the film was over, one of the opponents in the room quickly rose and read from a long list of objections to the film, including that ‘most homosexuals are very well off.’ Another spoke at length of his belief that homosexuality is against ‘God’s word.’
But then, gradually, slowly and often in tears, the LGBT folks and their family members, friends and allies began to recount their personal experiences.
A teenager described how he had been harassed at school when his classmates discovered his father was gay. ‘I didn’t understand why my friends turned their backs on me,’ he said. ‘To accept everyone is the only way to go about living.’
Then the teen’s father - a local business owner, Episcopal Vestry member and former Republican Party Chair - spoke of the acceptance he has quietly gained over his 30 years in the town.
Another young man, visibly nervous, publicly announced for the first time that he was proud to be both gay and Christian, even though his church had rejected him. That prompted a local minister to stand and announce that her church was supportive of LGBT people and would serve as a resource for those who wanted a welcoming spiritual home.
When a woman with a small child in her arms offered to make a financial donation to the library to offset any losses due to the screening, she was greeted by a solid burst of applause.
The topic of marriage equality was never even mentioned. But audience members did circulate a sign-up sheet for people who wanted to work with one another and Equality Partners of Western Pennsylvania to try and make Coudersport a more welcoming and tolerant place. By the time the event was over, the majority of the people in the room had signed up.
While it was painful, even frightening to observe the open hostility of the handful of individuals who attempted to stop the meeting from occurring, and then to disrupt the conversation with angry diatribes and personal attacks, people in the community have told us that it was actually useful that it all took place in full light of day because it revealed the seriousness of the problems that LGBT people face, often alone and without any networks of personal or legal support in such an environment.
The other screenings throughout Pennsylvania, which has a law on the books prohibiting same sex marriage, drew good crowds of local LGBT people and allies including educators, social workers and business owners, but only one minister showed up, in Emporium, PA. After watching the movie he took off his white collar and placed it in his shirt pocket. ‘Sometimes I’m embarrassed to be associated with the clergy in this area,’ he said. ‘My religion is about faith, not about hate.’
More Details: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-lichtenstein/proposition-8-dispatch-fr_b_685622.html?view=print
Film Draws Supporters of Non-Discrimination Ordinance - Main Line Times
August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
By Cheryl Allison
The community room at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute was standing-room-only last Friday night for the screening of a new documentary film.
But that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about the 100-plus turnout for Jason Landau Goodman, whose organization, Equality Lower Merion, hosted the event.
For the Main Line, “this was the first community LGBT event they could ever recall,” Goodman said of the audience, a diverse group that included different ages, some same-sex partners, but probably just as many or more heterosexual couples.
For Goodman, the Bala Cynwyd college student who last month urged the Lower Merion Township Board of Commissioners to adopt an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, it was a big step forward in the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues here.
Goodman and others have asked the township to join a growing list of Pennsylvania municipalities that have adopted local ordinances, in the absence of statewide law, prohibiting such discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation.
Pennsylvania’s 55-year-old Human Relations Act bars discrimination based on a number of factors, including race, color, religious creed, ancestry, age, sex and national origin, and empowers a state human-relations commission to receive, investigate and enforce complaints.
Despite recent proposed legislation, it remains silent on sexual orientation and gender identity, although it empowers municipalities to enact their own non-discrimination ordinances.
This week the borough of Doylestown did just that. Its council voted unanimously Monday night to adopt an ordinance like what Goodman has proposed, making it the 17th government in Pennsylvania to do so.
As a result of their discussion last month, Lower Merion commissioners directed township staff and the solicitor to draft an ordinance for review this fall.
Since the issue was introduced in Lower Merion, Radnor Township has also been considering a non-discrimination ordinance. Either could be Number 18.
The event Friday night was a screening of the documentary “Out in the Silence,” followed by a question-and-answer session with the filmmakers about their project and discussion of the Lower Merion initiative.
Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer made the film after Wilson was contacted by the mother of a 16-year-old boy in the western Pennsylvania town of Oil City. She had written to him after reading the announcement of his wedding to Hamer in Wilson’s hometown newspaper, where it sparked a storm of controversy. Her son had been tormented at school after he came out as gay, and she didn’t know anyone to turn to.
The film chronicles her fight to get reluctant school authorities to institute policies and training to stop harassment, anti-gay attacks against a local lesbian couple struggling to restore the downtown’s historic theater, and Wilson’s debates and eventual friendship with a local evangelical preacher in a move toward tolerance.
After the screening, Jo Anne Glusman, director of the Main Line Youth Alliance in Wayne, spoke about the organization’s programs for local LGBT youth. Glusman emphasized that intolerance is not just a problem of smaller towns like Oil City.
“This is not Oil City. This is the Main Line. We like to think we are in some ways above Oil City. In some ways we are, and in some ways we’re not,” Glusman said. For area teens and young adults, “it depends on the house they come from. We do have kids on the Main Line that are kicked out of their homes” when they come out as gay or transgender, she said.
An audience member acknowledged there’s a tendency to think discrimination is not an issue here. “So many people I talk to say they think this is over, that we’re in a different world. It’s important that we talk to people around us and say this is happening,” he said.
“Almost at every screening, we’re reminded why this is needed,” Wilson said of the ordinance.
Others in the audience suggested that perhaps the effort for Lower Merion should be broader — that an ordinance stating that discrimination based on race or other factors won’t be tolerated here.
In fact, the ordinance that Doylestown just adopted is comprehensive; the human-relations commission it establishes would be able to receive complaints on other factors, even though Pennsylvania law already provides protection.
Goodman said the idea of a comprehensive ordinance was considered, but that the feedback he had received was that commissioners might prefer a narrower focus. In the discussion last month, there was concern about the role and authority of a human-relations commission, and whether creating one might cost the township money.
In an interview this week, however, Goodman said that he and other members of Equality Lower Merion would push for a comprehensive ordinance.
Goodman also said he had hoped the draft ordinance might be brought forward for discussion as early as the board’s first meeting in September.
Township Public Information Officer Brenda Viola said, however, that no date has been scheduled, and that a draft ordinance is “projected for October.”
Goodman said Equality Lower Merion will hold its next meeting Sept. 7 at the Lower Merion Academy in Bala Cynwyd.
At the screening, Wilson said, people who have seen the film always want to know, “What’s happening in Oil City now?”
He didn’t mind throwing out a “little challenge” to his Main Line audience.
Recently, Wilson said, a comprehensive non-discrimination ordinance has been brought to the city council for consideration.
“Wouldn’t it be awful,” he wondered, if Oil City passes a law sooner?
More Details: http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2010/08/18/main_line_times/news/doc4c6bf5773475a059686693.prt
Screening of Documentary Draws Debate - Potter Leader-Enterprise - Coudersport, PA
August 05, 2010
By Brent Addleman, Leader-Enterprise Editor - Aug. 4, 2010
There was little silence following the showing of the documentary film “Out In The Silence” on Wednesday evening at the Coudersport Public Library.
A heated question-and-answer session emanated from the middle of the library that featured plenty of vitriol being thrown around the room in the form of questions of acceptance, deterring discrimination and even attacks on the library in the form of patrons no longer donating to help fund the organization because the film was shown.
About 80 residents attended the showing.
The film documents the struggle of a gay teen in rural Pennsylvania and was shown to a packed house that drew moments of laughter during the movie and moments of tension following.
Coudersport resident Bob Wagner opened the question-and-answer session with statements regarding the standing of gays and lesbians in society.
“I think the lesbians, gays, transsexuals and trans genders are doing quite well in America,” Wagner said. “June 21, USA Today talks about the gay teen girl that couldn’t take her girlfriend to the prom. She was honored in the White House by Barack Obama. The week before you were honored in New York with the annual gay parade endorsed by the mayor, and, of course, you have one in San Francisco endorsed by the mayor. You have the highest per capita income of any group in America. I don’t think you’re doing too bad. Are you ever going to be happy?”
While Wagner stated what he feels is a good standing of gays and lesbians in the community, he also made it clear he disagreed with their lifestyle choice.
“There’s quite a gay community in Coudersport and I think they are doing quite well,” Wagner said. “In spite of my statements here, I think you will find most of them I am on speaking terms with even though I disagree with their beliefs.”
Drawing the ire of the crowd, Wagner gave one final comment regarding his own plans for a forum.
“I am renting the Coudersport Public Library and I will be speaking and giving some more insight to the other side of the agenda,” Wagner said.
According to Wagner, everyone is invited to attend the event.
Joe Wilson, co-director and co- producer of the film, made a valiant attempt to calm what was quickly becoming a volatile environment.
“There seem to be some who do not want an open, public forum,” Wilson said. “That is what we are trying to deal with. We are going to try to be patient. We’re going to try to be respectful and make sure that everybody that wants to join in this conversation has the opportunity to do so.”
A woman from the crowd stated she felt what the library and Wilson and his partner in the film, Dean Hamer, have done in purveying a clear message is a good thing, inciting clapping from the capacity crowd.
“The film speaks to the issues many young people, in particular, experience in our school systems,” Wilson said. “The big question is how are the schools, parents, community equipped to address the situation. I don’t know what the situation is here in Potter County.”
Marty Montgomery, a pastor from the First Baptist Church of Roulette, then questioned Wilson and Hamer about the film and their ideals.
“I understand you folks want to improve the dialog between the gay and lesbian community and those who are not – at least I assume you do,” Montgomery said. “What I saw was what I consider gunpowder-type rhetoric. You said the library and yourselves were attacked and threatened. Would you tell me exactly what [occurred?]”
Wilson responded, “We read there were reports people were threatening to have the library de-funded.”
Montgomery then questioned Wilson as to the library losing funding being a threat to which Wilson gave a one-word answer, “Yes.”
On the issue of discrimination happening in schools and being a problem in Coudersport, Jessica Bonczar was quick to offer her own life experiences growing up in town.
“I’ve grown up here and I went to high school with several people that were gay,” Jessica Bonczar said. “I would like to say [discrimination] is an issue here. While I might not be gay, I watched some of my closest friends be bullied, harassed, threatened, treated like garbage. It is an issue here. It is. It is an issue everywhere. It is a human rights issue. This sort of thing is about intellectual freedom. People should be able to come together and have this sort of forum and discussion in a very civil manner. It is an issue here.”
Bonczar also addressed the library funding issue that was raised prior to the showing of the film.
“I have raised money for this library actively for years now, and it is a threat to have it de-funded,” Jessica Bonczar said. “We are struggling to stay afloat here. It is a threat.”
For Jaimi Bonczar, the film could be the starting point of understanding what gays and lesbians sometimes go through in small towns and teaching tolerance and acceptance.
“I went to high school here probably, well, 10 years ago,” Jaimi Bonczar said. “I also went to school with people who were harassed. This is a public forum. We all chose to be here. I think this could be a great place to start talking about this, how we can better support our own community. Be open-minded, be friendly to everybody. Our small town is just as important to me as the rest of the people. In our community, we care about each other – all of us, not just some of us. I really appreciate what you’ve done.”
Montgomery then interjected his own beliefs that homosexuality is the rejection of God’s word.
“In order for me to concede that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable, then I have to decide that God’s word must be rejected,” Montgomery said. “That is the decision. I am referring to the Bible. Nobody is going to be able to take the Bible and say homosexuality is sin – you just can’t do that. All you can do is reject it or say, ‘Well I don’t take it literally.’ This is what I am asking. Is it OK with you, if I continue to believe God?”
Hamer fully supported Montgomery’s statement.
“Yes, absolutely, and if you do not want to be gay yourself and you do not believe in homosexuality for yourself or for people at your church, that is absolutely fine,” Hamer said.
Wilson then interjected that during the showing of the film storms that had passed through the area produced a rainbow.
Rev. Evon McJunkin, who has served in the area for 23 years at the First United Presbyterian Church, offered support to those seeking literature on homosexuality and Christianity.
“If there are folks that would like resources in support of homosexuality, I have them for you. I believe that God loves and accepts gays and there is evidence of scripture of that,” McJunkin said.
For Don Caskey of Austin, the plight of being homosexual in a small town is one that caused those he called friends to turn their back when they learned of his lifestyle choice.
“I grew up in Austin and I grew up as a gay man,” Caskey said. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud because there was a time in my life that was the worst thing I could have ever said.
“I told one other person that I was gay, and like what happens in small towns it went through a wildfire throughout the town. I grew up very active in the Methodist church there. I have lots of friends. I was very active in that church. A lot of people supported me, but the people that considered themselves the most religious wrote me horrible letters.
“ The people who I considered some of my closest friends who were very active in that church showed their love for me by not coming to the funeral when my parents died, by not talking to me for 25 years simply for the fact I am gay. I stand before you saying you can believe whatever you want, but you are not showing your love, the love of Christ, unless you are reaching out to everyone – and that includes those who believe differently from you. I would encourage everybody to reach out and love everyone.”
For Kevin Eukon of Coudersport, he wouldn’t change his choice of growing up and living here.
“I feel very fortunate that I come from a town like Coudersport,” Eukon said. “I grew up here and came out of the closet in 1982, 1983. There have been moments of discrimination in my life, but one thing I have noticed about this town that makes it such a unique, wonderful place to live is when things started to get out of hand the town fathers always pressed them down.
“ I don’t see the discrimination here. There are pockets of it here and there are pockets of it anywhere. I think one thing Coudersport has is a decent community full of decent people and when the discrimination or the nastiness gets too out of hand there has always been a town father that has helped me through it or helped take care of it or addressed the situation. I think we are very fortunate to live in a town like Coudersport.”
For one local youth, being the son of gay parents was a trying experience, but one he wouldn’t trade for the world.
“When I was a kid up until sixth grade everything was cool and my parents were just my parents,” the boy said. “At the end of the sixth grade, we got the word ‘gay.’ Then my parents became ‘gay’ parents and my friends stopped being my friends. They call me gay. I didn’t understand why my friends turned their backs on me. But, there is nothing I can do to change my parents. They are gonna be gay and I have to let them be gay. I’m not gonna be like, ‘Dad, I hate you.’ I’m not going to change them. To accept everyone is the only way to go about living. You can point the finger all you want, but it isn’t going to get you anywhere in the end.”
Tredyffrin Library to show film on anti-gay harassment - Main Line Times - Chester County, PA
August 04, 2010
By Blair Meadowcroft for The Main Line Times
The award-winning new documentary “Out in the Silence,” which tells the story of a popular teenage athlete who is attacked and tormented for being homosexual in a small rural Pennsylvania town, is making its local debut at Tredyffrin Public Library Aug. 10 at 7 p.m.
The film, which has won many awards and gained much recognition, is being brought to the library with the help of local activists Anne Todd and Joey Kemmerling, according to filmmaker Joe Wilson.
Wilson was introduced to the story of this teenage athlete after the printing of his own same-sex wedding announcement in his hometown city newspaper was met with huge controversy.
“The film emerged out of the circumstances that unfolded around my own hometown of Oil City, Pa., when my partner and I placed our wedding announcement in the paper,” said Wilson. “Out of that I received a letter from a mother whose teenage son was receiving horrible reactions to being gay at his school, and that nothing was being done by the school authorities.”
Wilson went on to explain that this mother had reached out to him because there was no one else she could talk to. After learning of their story, Wilson and his partner, Dean Hamer, who had no prior film experience, went to meet the family and in response the film unfolded.
“When we heard their story, we knew we had to join with them to document their courageous struggle,” said Wilson. “If we didn’t help tell this story, it wouldn’t get told. We picked up our camera and started to do it as best we could. We followed this family along with others for over three years, and the documentary is their journey.”
According to Wilson, who was a grant-writer who worked on human-rights issues before making movies, this film exemplifies a loving family who demonstrates the importance of speaking up in their community when no one else is doing anything to help.
“Kathy, the mother of this young teenager, continues to speak out on the issues facing her son,” said Wilson. “There was an exciting moment when the film premiered in New York at Lincoln Center; Kathy came to the event and it was so overwhelming to see her there. Living in a small town and speaking out on these issues, Kathy’s voice is not always welcome, yet in New York she got an overwhelming ovation from hundreds of people. It was very powerful to see.”
The film has been played on public-television stations as well as many film festivals across the country, but even more important for Wilson and his team is that the film is being used at the grassroots level to help make the issues that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community faces more visible.
“In many rural communities, the lives of those who associate with being LGBT are not easy, and their issues are not highly visible,” said Wilson. “Showing this film and hosting discussions help bring an end to the negative attitudes that put the lives of LGBT people at risk every day. It is through these discussions that people can share their stories.”
Wilson went on to explain that through the general narrative about gay people’s lives in this country, it is understood that it is easier to migrate to bigger cities where the LGBT community is more accepted, but, he said, “the city isn’t for everyone.”
“That shouldn’t be the only way for LGBT people to have a life,” said Wilson. “They shouldn’t have to leave their family, home and community to survive. They should be able to stay where they want and be happy, safe and free of harassment and discrimination.”
For Wilson and his team, presenting their film and discussion in a library is ideal as it’s a place where all are equal and welcome, and where all types of educational programs are offered.
“Many people who identify as LGBT are going through these struggles in a dominant culture that isn’t always accepting, and it is helpful to have a film like this to identify with or learn from,” said Wilson. “The film comes with a discussion guide and resources to help with discussions. There couldn’t be a more perfect setting for this than at the library.”
While Wilson and his team are excited about the continuing interest in their film, they are most enthusiastic about the film’s ability to help communities become involved in the struggle of human rights.
“This is blossoming in Pennsylvania, so we are starting to work in other states at the grassroots level, and have tours across the country,” said Wilson. “We’ll see where this takes us. There is no end in sight because we’re just at the beginning of trying to bridge the gap of what is happening in small towns and rural areas. We hope to play a small but important role in the emergence of this movement.”
The film will be played Tuesday, Aug. 10, at 7 p.m. at Tredyffrin Public Library, 582 Upper Gulph Road, Wayne, and will be followed by a Q&A session with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, Chester County resident Anne Todd and special guest Joey Kemmerling, GLSEN Ambassador and founder of Bucks County-based The Equality Project.
More Details: http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2010/08/04/main_line_suburban_life/news/doc4c58968caa459116302190.txt
Potter County Library Faced Protests Over Gay Documentary - Harrisburg Patriot-News
July 31, 2010
by Donald Gilliland for The Harrisburg Patriot-News:
Published: Saturday, July 31, 2010
After several hours of people pointing their fingers in her face and telling her she was going to hell, Keturah Cappadonia cracked.
In tears, the 28-year-old librarian in this rural town of 2,500 people typed an e-mail to Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer canceling the planned screening of their award-winning PBS documentary about the challenges of being openly gay in rural Pennsylvania.
Wilson and Hamer are traveling the state with their film “Out In The Silence,” and Perry County is on the list of future venues.
The film recounts the men’s return to Oil City after a plea for help from the mother of a gay high school student being bullied at school.
It has been reviewed favorably by the American Library Association and Christianity Today, but it’s getting resistance in some of the rural counties where Wilson and Hamer think it most needs to be seen.
Several churches in Potter County launched a campaign to force the local library to cancel, and the president of the Potter County Tea Party called for the library’s funding to be revoked if it didn’t comply.
The 58-year-old library board president, Jane Metzger, decided she would have none of it.
Regardless of what she thought of homosexuality, she was not going to compromise the library’s mission “because of the very loud voices of a few folks.”
“Basically we’re looking at intellectual freedom,” said Metzger. “That’s the bottom line. That’s what a library is for.”
A quick series of calls to the other members of the board resulted in a unanimous decision: the screening would go forward as planned.
The leader of the Potter County Tea Party, through a local blogger, claimed the library was allowing conservative Christians to be “attacked for our beliefs at a public library we support with our tax money. This is wrong and cannot be tolerated.” Later, he apologized for using the Tea Party name to express his personal opinion.
In the meantime, the filmmakers issued a press release, and the local blogosphere lit up in a bonfire of anonymous comments and accusations.
By the time people began to arrive for the screening two days later, Cappadonia looked shell-shocked.
“I don’t like controversy,” she said. “I know it’s a conservative community, but I never imagined it would get such a knee-jerk reaction.”
Some were saying Christian views would never be allowed an airing at the library because of separation of church and state. But the the library has six shelves of Bibles and Christian books in the non-fiction section, and Christian fiction is “wildly popular,” said Cappadonia.
Many Christians in Coudersport support the library. One said, “This is not a town that burns books.”
Cars quickly filled the library parking lot. Then they filled the lot for the neighborhood park next door. Then they began pulling onto the grass.
When the lights went down, all seats were full. People were sitting on the floor, sitting on bookshelves, standing between the stacks and against the wall. Many could not see the screen, but stayed just to listen.
As the film neared its conclusion an hour later, there was a flash of lightning outside, a sharp clap of thunder, and a double rainbow filled the sky.
Inside, a few opponents of the film offered their brimstone and walked out.
Applause erupted when a woman told the library board, “I think it’s good what you’ve done here.”
Some attempted to speak at length about “God’s Law,” and expressed frustration when they were asked to let others talk, too.
Openly gay members of the town — teenagers, adults and senior citizens — spoke briefly. Some said they felt embraced by the community and lucky to live there; others much less so.
Walter Baker, former chairman of the local Republican party and a member of the vestry at the Episcopal church, has owned a hotel in the center of town as an openly gay man for over 30 years.
“The people here are probably the most friendly people around,” he said. “They’ve been more than generous to me knowing who and what I am.”
A man from a town nearby said his church was very important to him, but when he came out of the closet “the people who considered themselves the most religious wrote me horrible letters.”
The discussion got loud a few times, but the consensus afterward was it was worthwhile.
When everyone was gone, Keturah Cappadonia locked the door.
Library board member Terri Shaffer sat on the floor and began ripping up the tattered duct tape patching the carpet.
The carpet “was good stuff when it was put in,” said Metzger. “June 1973 to be exact.”
Although the local Tea Party claimed “$1.5 million of local taxes” go to the library, the reality is its total budget last year was $117,000 - with less than $42,000 from local governments.
“I think it was a good experience,” said Shaffer. “Who cares if people get a little loud and speak their mind?”
Maybe the experience will bring in some donations — “especially from Harrisburg” she quipped.
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
It was one of the local ministers who spoke against the “homosexual lifestyle.”
When Cappadonia opened the door, he apologized to her.
“I feel badly about people coming in and badgering you,” he said.
Then he addressed Shaffer, saying “Terri, I hope I didn’t disappoint you too much.”
“It’s not my job to judge you,” she said with a smile.
More Details: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/07/potter_county_library_challeng.html
Pa. Tea Party Issues Public Apology for Documentary Controversy - The Advocate
July 30, 2010
By Jeffrey Gerson for The Advocate:
George Brown, president of the Potter County Tea Party, has issued a public apology for his protest of the acclaimed documentary OUT IN THE SILENCE when it screened at a local library on its tour throughout Pennsylvania.
In an interview with The Advocate, Joe Wilson, codirector of Out in the Silence, explained the project’s mission: “The purpose of the whole tour was really to use this film to raise awareness and visibility about the lives of LGBT people in rural communities and small towns and help strengthen the ability of LGBT people in these communities to begin organizing for change.” The tour has so far covered over half of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. Yet upon setting up shop in Coudersport, Pa., Wilson and Dean Hamer, his partner and codirector, met with controversy.
The film was set to be screened at the public library, Wilson explained, emphasizing, “just as any community group can do, or any citizen can use the public library for a program.” All was well until the duo received a call from the library director announcing that the event would have to be canceled. “She was receiving angry calls from local pastors for having scheduled a gay and lesbian program at the library. They were making threats that they were going to call for the library to be defunded,” Wilson said
An article that ran Monday on CoudyNews.com provides quotations both from Pete Tremblay, pastor of the Free Methodist Church and the Tea Party’s Brown. Tremblay issued a request for people to “call the library ... and in a Christian manner inform them that this event is not a benefit to our community, and ask that it be canceled.” Brown took a different approach: “Should this agenda be continued, we may need to ask if the library should be defunded.”
The library’s board of directors ultimately supported the film, saying they would not be threatened. The event was a success, Wilson reported: “It was the largest event in the library in a long time. We had a very supportive crowd from high school students all the way up to elderly people. There were conflicting viewpoints present during the discussion, though Hamer believes these were positive as well, as it made it clear how challenging it can be to be LGBT in that kind of environment.”
Brown issued an official apology for his actions Thursday, stating, “The Tea Party is not concerned with a gay movie, but I as a person was concerned with the library being the venue for the movie, and frankly that had little to do with our Tea Party mission either. In retrospect I should of used my personal email to voice my opinion.”
More Details: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/07/30/Penn_Tea_Party_Apologizes_for_Documentary_Controversy/
“Film Critic’s Pick of the Week”—The New York Times
July 09, 2010
by New York Times Critic Neil Genzlinger:
Dean Hamer and Joseph Wilson are bringing “OUT IN THE SILENCE,” their documentary about a gay teenager, to the big city this week, but they are far more interested in showing it in small towns. The film looks in on Oil City, Pa., Mr. Wilson’s hometown, telling the story of a gay high school student there named C. J. who was being harassed mercilessly. When in 2004 Mr. Wilson and Dr. Hamer, though living in Washington, ran their wedding announcement in the Oil City newspaper, C. J.’s mother saw it and contacted them to see if they could offer help or advice.
That sent Mr. Wilson back to Oil City with a camera, helped by Dr. Hamer (who works at the National Institutes of Health). What they caught on camera was more than the expected small-town hostility toward gay people, though there was plenty of that. “It’s much more complex and nuanced than people really give much thought to,” Mr. Wilson said.
Their documentary is showing on Monday at Tribeca Cinemas, but Mr. Wilson and Dr. Hamer have also been screening it in small towns. They are halfway through a commitment to play it in every county in Pennsylvania. Who do they most hope sees it? “I’d like it to be some gay guy who was born in some little town like Oil City and had to leave there,” Dr. Hamer said. “And he sees it and thinks, ‘Maybe I could go back to my little town and start something.’ ”
Monday, June 28 at 7:30 p.m., Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street, at Laight Street. (212) 941-2001; $10.
More Details: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/arts/27weekaheadweb.html?ref=arts
Variety highlights OITS screening at Outfest - “stories of world’s most diverse minority”
July 06, 2010
The announcement of a same-sex marriage doesn’t go over well in small town America.
More Details: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118021395.html?categoryid=3670&cs=1
OUT Magazine Feature
July 05, 2010
Filmmakers Joe Wilson & Dean Hamer discuss how the simple act of placing their wedding announcement in a small-town newspaper led to making their PBS- and Sundance-sponsored film.
More Details: http://www2.out.com/detail.asp?page=1&id=27092
“Inspired To Help”—Moving Pictures Magazine features OUT IN THE SILENCE
July 04, 2010
Moving Pictures: the stories behind the movies
More Details: http://www.movingpicturesmagazine.com/Personalities/tabid/58/entryid/3691/Inspired-to-Help-Out-in-the-Silence.aspx
Gay Talk Live Radio Interview Feature on OUT IN THE SILENCE
July 01, 2010
Listen to a podcast of the dynamic discussion about OITS and the movement for fairness & equality for LGBT in rural & small town America here:
“A touching, compelling documentary”—The Advocate Hot Sheet
June 26, 2010
Hot Sheet: Cruise, Shears, and Hate Crimes
Tom Cruise, Jake Shears, the Indigo Girls, and a touching documentary about a 16-year-old boy who is brutally attacked for being gay make up this week in film, music, and books.
By Advocate.com Editors, June 25, 2010
Out in the Silence — A harrowing account of an intensely personal battle waged by the mother of a popular 16-year-old boy who is brutally attacked for being gay at his small-town high school in Oil City, Pa. This compelling documentary premiered in New York June 21 at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and more screenings and PBS broadcasts are scheduled around the nation.
More Details: http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/DVDs/Hot_Sheet_Tom_Cruise,_Scissor_Sisters_and_Holly_Golightly/
indieWIRE Spotlight on OUT IN THE SILENCE
June 25, 2010
by indieWIRE (June 25, 2010):
In this week’s SnagFilms spotlight, partners Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer explore what life is like for LGBT individuals residing in a small Pennsylvania town. Follow the link below to read the full interview on how professional and personal partnership lead them to making “Out in the Silence”...
More Details: http://www.indiewire.com/article/filmmaker_interview_joe_wilson_and_dean_harner_document_lgbt_struggle_in/
“Oil City Urged To Adopt Human Rights Policy”—The Derrick
June 23, 2010
Headline Article in The Derrick newspaper of Oil City, PA, June 23, 2010:
Community also asked to embrace Joe Wilson’s ‘Out in the Silence’ film
By JUDITH O. ETZEL Staff writer
Oil City Council has been asked to embrace a film that explores tolerance in small American communities, specifically Oil City and Franklin, and recognize it as a major marketing tool for the community.
At the same time, local resident George Cooley urged the city to adopt a formal human rights policy and create a city events office to promote the arts and community activities.
Cooley, a West Second Street resident who operates an Internet business in his home and is an active member of the Oil City Arts Council, took the city to task for ignoring what he believes is a great opportunity to promote itself via the film “Out in the Silence.”
The award-winning 2009 “Out in the Silence” documentary tells the story of a gay high school student and explores small-town reaction to same-sex marriage. The film’s director is Joe Wilson, an Oil City native whose 2004 marriage to his partner, Dean Hamer, was announced in The Derrick. The announcement stirred controversy in the community and eventually led to the film that tells the story of a gay Franklin student who came out to his classmates and faced discrimination.
The film, supported by the Sundance Institute, the Pennsylvania Public Television Network and Penn State Pubic Broadcasting, also explores various aspects of the Oil City and Franklin area as the Wilson tries to connect with church and community leaders who are strongly opposed to homosexuality and finds others who are supportive.
Last month, the American Library Association reviewed “Out in the Silence” and recommended it for all viewers, noting “it deserves a place in all library collections, particularly those libraries serving small and rural communities.”
Noteworthy ‘art’
The film, said Cooley, “may be the most successful art project to ever come from Oil City ... (and) is a great public relations tool for Oil City” as it lobbies to bill itself as a community trumpeting its arts revitalization successes.
“Positive energy developed by this movie for our town is priceless, and much larger communities would pay a great deal for what we are getting for free,” Cooley told council. “Unfortunately, Oil City seems to have all but ignored this great opportunity.”
In describing Wilson and his film as supporting a movement “for fairness, equality and human rights,” Cooley said the arts council intends to recognize Wilson for his art and invite him to show the film in Oil City. There have been two recent showings — one private and one public — in the city.
In urging city council to “grab ahold of this opportunity,” Cooley suggested the city should honor Wilson in a “key to the city kind of recognition.”
Wilson’s message on the need to safeguard human rights should also be incorporated into Oil City’s organizational framework, said Cooley. He recommended council adopt a “statement of fairness, equality and human rights for all people” and create an ordinance to that effect.
Finally, Oil City should create an events office that would coordinate community activities. The new department should include a film office to coincide with the “Out in the Silence” film fame as well as the region’s Digital Film Festival and other local video projects. Initially, the events coordinator could be the city manager, said Cooley.
Mayor Sonja Hawkins told Cooley she and other city and school district representatives met with Wilson prior to a film showing here. Noting they had “a great conversation,” Hawkins suggested council should talk further about Cooley’s proposal.
Hiring an events coordinator would be fantastic, said council member Lee Mehlburger.
That was tempered by caution offered by council member John Bartlett.
“We share some of your desires,” Bartlett said to Cooley. “But, we face the reality of how to pay for it.”
More Details: http://www.thederrick.com/news/2010-06-23/Front_Page/OC_urged_to_adopt_human_rights_policy.html
“A Fresh and Inspiring Approach”—New York Magazine Critics’ Pick
June 22, 2010
New York Magazine Review of OUT IN THE SILENCE:
The most illuminating aspect of this fine work, in which Wilson returns to his Pennsylvania hometown to help a tormented gay teenager, is the filmmaker’s interactions with a local pastor who holds “traditional values.”
No more silence
Wilson’s choice to ditch the Michael Moore antics in favor of a civil face-to-face discussion with his opponent, through which a sort of enlightened friendship develops, models a fresh and inspiring approach to this heartbreaking issue.
More Details: http://nymag.com/listings/movie/out-in-the-silence/
“These Stories Need To Be Told - and Seen and Heard”—SF Bay Times Review
June 21, 2010
Review of OUT IN THE SILENCE by Gary Kramer for the San Francisco Bay Times:
A touching, inspirational documentary, Out in the Silence (Friday, June 25, 7:00 pm, Roxie) is a sobering portrait of a conservative small town rocked by the actions of queer natives. Joe Wilson prompted a hate debate when his hometown newspaper in Oil City, PA printed his same-sex wedding announcement. Wilson and his partner Hamer travel to Oil City to confront the negative attitudes they encountered only to discover other stories of discrimination. These include CJ Bills, an openly gay sixteen year-old who is verbally and physically abused in high school, and Roxanne Hitchcock and her partner Linda Henderson who faced bigotry and intolerance when they restored a local art deco theatre. Out in the Silence presents these stories in a very honest, heartfelt, and unpretentious way. When CJ admits that he wished he’d never come out because he hates being in public, it’s emotionally devastating. Yet Wilson deftly contrasts such sentiments with eloquent testimonies from several straight men that used to queer-bash, which is quite moving. What Wilson and Hamer have done here is not only address small-town small mindedness, but more importantly, they have shown grassroots activism at its best. Through their film, they have opened dialogues with members of the community and even changed minds. The style of their film may be a bit crude, but the messages are powerful. These stories need to be told—and seen and heard.
More Details: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=13159
Daring to Be Gay in Small Town USA - IPS News Agency
June 21, 2010
By Amanda Bransford for the IPS News Agency:
NEW YORK, Jun 21, 2010 (IPS) - Washington, D.C. residents Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer weren’t expecting to become filmmakers when they placed an announcement of their wedding in Wilson’s hometown newspaper.
A similar announcement they had placed in the New York Times garnered only congratulations, but in Oil City, Pennsylvania, the reception to a same-sex wedding was not so warm.
“It was a fascinating contrast,” said Wilson, when the Oil City paper received angry letters instead of good wishes.
Wilson went through high school closeted and had long felt unwelcome in his hometown, so the chilly reception to his happy news was no great surprise.
Then Wilson received something that did surprise him: a letter from Kathy Springer, the mother of CJ, a gay Oil City teenager who had been harassed so badly in his public school that he had quit in favour of home schooling and barely left the house.
The school board refused to help CJ, and his mother didn’t know where to turn. “I was the only openly gay person she knew of,” said Wilson.
The movement for gay rights has tended to focus on urban areas, said Wilson, and, though Wilson and Hamer had not made a film before, they wanted CJ’s story to be told.
“We realised that if we wanted this documented, we should start filming,” said Hamer.
Over the course of three years, the two men traveled frequently to Pennsylvania to shoot, eventually receiving a grant from the Sundance Institute.
In the process, Wilson and Hamer were struck by the silence in which GLBT people in small town U.S.A. are forced to live. CJ had become a target by daring to break that silence and come out in high school – something no one did when Wilson was growing up in Oil City.
The increasing visibility of GLBT people has had mixed results for teenagers like CJ, said Hamer.
“The good side is that kids like CJ know that they’re not the only gay person in the world, but the bad side is that there’s been a backlash as a result,” he said. “It’s made bullying even worse as a way to tag kids that are gay.”
Oil City’s vocal conservative Christian community was making life especially difficult for GLBT residents.
Hamer says while that the anti-gay activists in Oil City may have seemed like an extreme fringe group, “They have power because no one wants to make them upset.”
Despite the efforts of these activists, Wilson and Hamer were surprised to find an accepting community in Oil City that Wilson, growing up in silence himself, had overlooked.
“I was terrified of beginning to understand who I was,” said Wilson of his adolescence. “The general dominant culture said that this was not good, and I was not seeking a community out.”
Returning to document CJ’s story, though, Wilson, along with his husband, forges relationships with lesbian neighbours he never knew he had who are facing their own struggles. He is even able to find common ground with some of those who had complained about the wedding announcement.
“It changed my perception of my home town,” Wilson said.
Wilson and Hamer have now become unlikely ambassadors of a sort for struggling Oil City.
They took their finished film to the city council, said Wilson, and told them, “Either you can deny this all happened, or look at it as a tool to show what a great place Oil City is becoming. They did the latter.”
A subsequent screening at the local community college sold out, and the filmmakers have brought “Out in the Silence” to other towns in hope that Oil City’s progress can serve as a model.
“This is not just film for film’s sake,” said Hamer. “It’s a powerful tool for community activism.”
Human Rights Watch expressed interest while Wilson and Hamer were working on the project, and the film will screen Jun. 21-23 at the Film Society of Lincoln Centre as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
“Human Rights Watch saw that this isn’t just a domestic political issue as people sometimes see gay rights. It’s tied into the global struggle for equality,” said Wilson.
More Details: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51897
OITS Featured On NBC Nightly News
June 21, 2010
In a brief video clip with host Chuck Scarborough, Andrea Holley, Director of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, talks about the program of 30 films, from 25 countries, highlighting OUT IN THE SILENCE.
More Details: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/station/as-seen-on/Human_Rights_Film_Festival_New_York.html
“A Brilliant Piece of Filmmaking”
June 21, 2010
“Out In The Silence” Shines Light On LGBT Rural Youth
By David Mixner on the blog Live From Hell’s Kitchen:
Pride month always sees the releases of top notch LGBT documentaries. Already we have seen the stunning “Stonewall Uprising” and “8: The Mormon Proposition” hit the theatres. Each year the films are more professional, highest quality and enlightening. This week gives us another amazing documentary with the release of “Out in The Silence.” The film premieres this evening a the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. For those who can’t make it, the film will also premiere on WNET on June 27th at 11:30PM.
“Out in The Silence” reminds each and every one of us the plight of the LGBT community in small town America. We watch with stunned silence as blatant and brutal discrimination is directed toward the small LGBT community in Oil City. The story of young teenager CJ Springer and his mother is especially poignant and harrowing. This brave, handsome and courageous teenager comes out in high school. One day he is a basketball and baseball jock and the next day he is the school ‘fag.’ As teachers and administrators knowingly look the other way, the brutal reaction forces him to leave his high school for his own safety.
The film was conceived by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson after their wedding announcement in the Oil City, Pennsylvania newspaper created a stir. From the announcement, they received a letter from CJ’s mother who was frantic with concern about her son’s emotional and mental status given the terror he had experienced in high school. With camera in hand, Hamer and Wilson head to Oil City to tell us initially the Springer’s story but eventually the story of all LGBT people in this town. The filmmakers wisely let their subjects tell their stories and avoid intruding into the film. As a result, “Out in the Silence” reveals itself to be a top-notch film with spectacular storytelling that yields truth.
Papers are filled with talks about the cultural wars. But as you watch this amazing film, you realize that ‘cultural war’ in middle America is an inadequate tagline to mask real human suffering, fear and courage such as we see taking place in Oil City.
The movie takes us from the deep valley of hatred and discrimination with the town bigots organizing against anything related to LGBT issues to the heights of redemption and victory. Watching this movie you know that America is filled with CJ’s and his mom, the powerful lesbian couple helping to renew Oil City and brave people willing to change. Also we are reminded in a disturbing way the depth of hate in small town America toward LGBT Americans.
Think we are close to victory? Think we can compromise on freedom and justice? Then I suggest you take just over 70 minutes and watch this brilliant piece of filmmaking. We owe a huge thanks to Hamer and Wilson and all involved for shining light on the work that still needs to be done in our struggle for freedom - especially for young Americans in rural areas.
More Details: http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/movie-review-out-in-the-silence-shines-light-on-lgbt-rural-youth.html
“It’s Simply A Matter Of Trying To Understand Attitudes in Small Town America
June 21, 2010
Coming Out in Smalltown USA: Documentary explores a Pennsylvania town’s attitudes about homosexuality
by Mark Moring for Christianity Today:
When Joe Wilson got married, he put an announcement in his hometown newspaper in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Nothing unusual about that, except that Wilson had married another man—and a picture of the two of them appeared in the paper. Angry, even hateful, letters to the editor poured in; one said that it would’ve been better for Wilson not to have been born. Wilson responded not in anger himself, but by revisiting his hometown, with his partner and a couple of camcorders, to look into the town’s attitudes.
The result is Out in the Silence, a 65-minute documentary that ends up following four main subplots in Oil City. First, a gay teen who was verbally and physically abused at the local high school, and the quest that he and his mother take to confront those attitudes and the school district’s refusal to make things right. Second, a lesbian couple that buys a crumbling downtown art-deco theater and renovates it into a functioning civic showcase again. Third, a woman representing the American Family Association who seems to be on a crusade against gays, more anxious to speak out against their “agenda” to take the time to meet or listen to any of them.
Fourth—and likely most interesting to CT readers—a local Christian pastor and his wife who had written one of the letters to the editor decrying homosexuality, only to later show tolerance and love toward the filmmakers as they got to know them in the months ahead. The pastor didn’t compromise his biblical beliefs at all; he continues to believe that homosexuality is a sin. But, for the first time in his life, he actually gets two know gay people, and by the end of the film is calling them friends. There’s some interesting dialogue between the two “sides” as their unlikely friendship unfolds throughout the film. It’s really a Christlike response from the pastor.
Though the film is made by two gay men, it doesn’t seek to promote a “gay agenda” or to stereotype the “religious right.” It’s simply a matter of trying to understand attitudes in small-town America. The filmmakers end up advocating for the teenager to the school board and in a civil rights lawsuit, and the local school board ends up admitting they should’ve done more to help the boy who was abused; they incorporate staff training as a result. Despite some initial opposition, the two women end up re-opening the theater to a warm reception of both gays and straights. The AFA rep never changes, and refuses to look the gay men in the eye or even have a conversation with them. And the pastor and his wife seem glad to have made new friends, though they clearly disagree with their lifestyle.
The film is showing at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York today, followed by broadcast on New York’s two largest public television stations, WLIW (June 26, 3 p.m. ET) and WNET (June 27, 11:30 p.m. ET).
More Details: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctentertainment/2010/06/coming-out-in-smalltown-usa-1.html
“An absorbing documentary”—GregInHollywood
June 20, 2010
Countdown to Outfest 2010: The absorbing “Out In The Silence” gives us a picture of small town bigotry and bravery—by Greg Hernandez
What They Call An Agenda, We Call Our Lives
June 20, 2010
by Cynthia Fuchs, director of Film & Media Studies and Associate Professor of English, African American Studies, Sport & American Culture, and Film & Video Studies, at George Mason University, for PopMatters:
CJ Bills lives in Oil City, Pennsylvania, where the Allegheny River and Oil Creek connect. At only 16 years old, he’s already got a slew of memories about the place, most of them painful. “I hate it around here,” he says, as you watch him shooting baskets by himself. He hates being harassed by classmates, the name-calling and the threats to “have my house burnt down and stuff because I’m a faggot.”
This first scene in Out in the Silence lays out CJ’s dilemma: smart and self-aware, confident and athletic, he’s endured relentless abuse since he came out. “I was slammed into lockers, hit with stuff, being yelled ‘faggot,’” he says, standing outside his former high school’s front doors. Worse, the kids’ ignorance and aggression were tacitly supported by teachers and administrators who “always gave a deaf ear and a blind eye, they never said a word.”
CJ is sharing his story with filmmaker Joe Wilson, who also grew up in Oil City, but moved to DC before he came out. Wilson’s documentary, premiering on 21 June at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York, sets his experience alongside CJ’s, noting the startling lack of change in this “small town with small town values,” while trying to provoke at least a little change. With his new husband, Dean Hamer, manning the camera, Wilson sets to interviewing locals in hopes of learning why they remain so closed-minded.
To that end, when he learns that CJ also “want[s] to make videos,” Wilson gives him a camera too, hoping he’ll use it “to show what life was like for him as a gay teen.” The resulting documentary is something of a hybrid, part investigation, part self-portrait, and part advocacy project, including a third story as well, about Roxanne and Linda, a couple trying to reopen an historic theater in town amid anxieties that they’re doing so to promote their “agenda.” As Wilson discovers that he’s making some assumptions of his own, his film presents an earnest, sometimes meandering, case for open discussion.
Wilson and his new husband, Dean Hamer, undertake to interview not only Kathy, who wrote a letter to Wilson in response to his wedding announcement, published in the local newspaper, but also the writers of other letters that were predictably hateful and angry (“It makes me sick to my stomach,” “Better for you not to have been born,” etc.). Unsurprisingly, Wilson doesn’t find many people willing to talk to him on camera, though he does meet with Pastor Mark Micklos and his wife Diana. Introduced here as they walk over a rolling green lawn with their dog, the couple invites Wilson and Hamer into their home, then explain their hard line against gay marriage: “If I grant two men the right to marry,” Micklos says, “what’s wrong with incest or polygamy? It would just expand.” The wife supports the case by noting that, in plumbing, the “design” calls for both male and female fittings.
Sighing metaphorically, Wilson confesses here that “talking to people” isn’t yielding exactly the results he hoped for. He’s further daunted when he learns the Mickloses were inspired to write their letter by an email blast from Diane Gramley, a local radio talk show host and state director for the American Family Association (AFA). Determined to uphold the “natural family,” Gramley rejects Wilson’s requests for an interview, but finds herself on camera anyway, when she participates in an anti-gay marriage protest during Oil City’s “Oil Heritage Parade.” As Wilson walks with her, they pass a uniformed cop who remembers Wilson from back in the day (“Hey Joe! How you doin’?”), and she pronounces, “There have been homosexuals throughout society, but they have not attempted to redefine marriage and family as they are today.” She argues that homosexuals can be teachers, for instance, but they can’t be out, because that would be “promoting their lifestyle.”
Such moments help to make a primary point in Out in the Silence, that times are already overtaking throwback phobes like Gramley. Her certainty and visible anger repeatedly look unthoughtful and mean-spirited here, as when she and Kathy both speak at a city legislators’ hearing on what Gramley calls a “special rights bill.” By the time Kathy is done describing the violence against CJ, the black men on the panel are nodding their heads in sympathy, plainly rejecting Gramley’s argument that the civil rights movement was not the same as calls for protections for students like CJ, because African Americans could not “change” their race. One of the legislators offers to put Kathy in touch with the ACLU so she can press her case against the school board who refused to help her son, the camera watching them walk off stage together. A cut to Gramley shows her refusing to participate in more discussion on camera, “because of the roads that that will open.”
But hers is a losing cause. As loud and scary as the vitriol of the right may be, Out in the Silence demonstrates that it can’t compete with people’s lived experiences, alongside queer neighbors, local businesspeople, classmates, and relatives. Micklos shows up at the hearing in support of CJ and Kathy, admitting to Wilson that he used to be “that type of person at one time,” the type who would “put people like CJ at risk,” by stereotyping and closing down conversation. Now, Micklos sees himself and others differently: “Sometimes we’re not what our first impressions are.”
More Details: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/127271-out-in-the-silence
“Surprising Scenes of Honesty and Individual Introspection”—Slant Magazine
June 19, 2010
Slant Magazine review by Bill Weber:
A report from the middle-American front of the battle for LGBT citizens to lead uncloseted lives, Out in the Silence overcomes some stilted framing—gay man from the sticks returns home with camera, 25 years later, to fight undiminished homophobia—with surprising scenes of honesty and individual introspection. D.C.-based filmmaker Joe Wilson placed an announcement of his same-sex wedding in the newspaper of his northwest Pennsylvania hometown: Oil City, a depressed “back hills” community of shuttered refineries and dimmed hope. In the wake of letters to the editor decrying the “homosexual agenda,” Wilson received a plea for help from an Oil City woman who’d withdrawn her son, car-loving jock CJ Bills, from the local high school in the face of daily abuse from students and “a blind eye and a deaf ear” from the staff; Wilson and his partner (co-director Dean Hamer) soon set out for the boondocks and made a three-year study of the dynamics of 21st-century small-town tolerance.
Along with his overly earnest liberal-activist moves (like booking his transgendered folksinger friend to play a gig in town), Wilson supplies the isolated, cyberschooled CJ with a video camera with which he records neo-Jackass stunts, self-rallying monologues, and an interview in which he asks pioneering “gay gene” researcher Hamer, “If it’s only a gene, why can’t we destroy it and just be straight?” Besides Kathy Springer, CJ’s salt-of-the-earth, energetic mom who takes her crusade for diversity education to a state legislators’ hearing and the ACLU, the doc follows a lesbian couple’s efforts to restore an old, decrepit downtown theater to a semblance of its former glory; with twinkling good humor, both handywomen speak of the comparative size of their chainsaws. All three find a nemesis in “family values” radio host Diane Gramley, a rep of the conservative Christian group American Family Association, who ultimately evokes more pity from the filmmakers than rage.
Perhaps the most heartening strand of Out in the Silence finds Wilson strikling up a friendship with an evangelical pastor and his wife who wrote (at the behest of Gramley’s organization) in protest of the paper’s wedding announcement. Clearly not hateful monsters, the couple’s personal exposure to a polite but forthright gay person permits them to bring the love they speak of in their church into broader practice. This feel-good turn, however, doesn’t saturate this complex story with unalloyed optimism; asked if he ever regrets coming out at 16, CJ replies, “Every single day.”
Out in the Silence will play on June 21, 22, and 23 as part of this year’s Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. For more information click here.
More Details: http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/06/human-rights-watch-film-festival-2010-out-in-the-silence/
“Coming out trumps staying in the closet.”
June 12, 2010
Facing Foes and Fears on Film. Review by Seth J. Bookey for Gay City News
More Details: http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2010/06/11/gay_city_news/arts/doc4c125c2ae9d3e417837437.txt
Eye On Human Rights - Film Journal International review
June 10, 2010
Eye On Human Rights: Annual Film Festival Illuminates Wide Range Of Social Issues
by Marcia Garcia for Film Journal International - June 10, 2010
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival (HRWFF), in its 21st year this summer in New York City, screens at a time when most New Yorkers are preoccupied with record-breaking unemployment, cuts in funding to public institutions, and sliding real estate values, the latter one of the pillars of our urban economy. New Yorkers, like other Americans, hold bankers, Wall Street executives and developers responsible for the city’s belt-tightening, but we remain newly shaken from our equanimity, unaccustomed as we are to the city’s vulnerability.
In the rush to assign culpability and dispense justice, will we seize this opportunity to reshape our city, to introduce reforms that may make her less susceptible in the future and, more importantly, that reflect our progressive values as New Yorkers? Every film at HRWFF, whether it illustrates terrible crimes committed in Cambodia and Sierra Leone, or injustices here and abroad, appeals to our humanity—to acknowledging victimization, but also to examining our complicity.
Nineteen feature-length documentaries and narrative films, all of which were in consideration for HRWFF’s Nestor Almendros Award, and organized around three themes—accountability and justice, development and migration, and societies in conflict—screen at the Walter Reade Theater June 10-24. The winning documentary, Enemies of the People, about the 1970s genocide in Cambodia, will have its New York premiere on June 18. Co-directors Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath take home the cash prize, named for a founder of HRWFF. The festival’s sidebar, “Youth Producing Change,” screens 11 shorts by young people from countries as diverse as Kenya, Slovenia and the Occupied Territories. HRWFF opens with 12th and Delaware, about the ideological battle over abortion, and closes on June 24 with Presumed Guilty, which follows a case before Mexico’s criminal court.
For New Yorkers, many of the films shown this year will seem as distant as the geographical and cultural divide which separates New York from Fort Pierce, Florida, or Freetown, Sierra Leone, but the message of accountability resonates nonetheless. In the recent rash of hate crimes across the New York metropolitan area—motivated by race, sexual preference and class—we see in microcosm the roots of civil conflicts across the globe. Resolution lies in the just assignment of blame, but also in a reconsideration of the values of any society which creates fertile ground for these crimes. In this year’s festival especially, when the economy is forcing many New Yorkers to re-evaluate their own lives, it will be difficult to meet the moral challenge of HRWFF’s human-rights filmmakers. We had the privilege of speaking with six them about their courageous work in far-flung parts of the globe and here at home.
Out in the Silence, Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson
Joe Wilson left his hometown of Oil City, Pennsylvania, after high school and never looked back. Six years ago, he married New York native Dean Hamer in Washington, D.C., and last year the couple celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in the Rust Belt town. What happened in between is the subject of their documentary Out in the Silence.
When Wilson and Hamer took their vows, they did what most people do who had long ago left home—they shared the news of their wedding by placing announcements in their hometown newspapers, in this case Oil City’s The Derrick and The New York Times. Eight months of invective followed from readers of The Derrick, along with one letter to Wilson, sent directly to the couple’s home. It was from an Oil City mom despondent over the treatment her gay son CJ was receiving at school.
Wilson, who remained “closeted” throughout his high-school years in Oil City, found Kathy Springer’s letter surprising. He also felt a deep responsibility to CJ. “CJ was ‘outed’ because he defended a kid who was being tortured,” Wilson explains in a telephone conversation from Washington, D.C. “He said he wasn’t going to stand by and watch it. I had a peer in high school who couldn’t hide that he was gay, and I was a witness to his abuse. I did nothing but go deeper into the closet until I could escape.” Wilson decided it was time to go home, and Hamer, a doctor with the National Institutes of Health at the time, accompanied him. “It was a culture shock for me to go to Oil City,” Hamer admits, “but it was also great because I was there with Joe.”
Out in the Silence documents CJ and Kathy’s travails with the Oil City School District, but also the lives of Linda and Roxanne, a couple who live two doors away from Wilson’s childhood home. “We met Roxanne because we noticed her rainbow flag,” Hamer remembers, “and I said: ‘Joe, knock on the door.’” During the course of filming, Roxanne met and fell in love with Linda, and the two purchased and renovated a historic theatre, in part to contribute to Oil City’s revitalization efforts.
An evangelist minister and his wife, the Mickloses, who reached out to Wilson and Hamer, complete the filmmakers’ wistful portrait of small-town America. Every one of their subjects overturns a stereotype, but homespun mom Kathy most surprisingly of all. “I’m glad you mention her in that light,” Wilson says, “as representing that broader notion of what people’s preconceived ideas are of rural areas and small towns, and the people who call them home. She is remarkable.”
Out in the Silence will be broadcast by New York City’s PBS station in late June. “We began this project with the idea that we would paint a portrait of Oil City based on the responses from the newspaper announcement,” Hamer recalls. Then there were four years of filming, during which CJ and Kathy, with the help of the ACLU, sued the Oil City school district for discrimination and won. Linda and Roxanne opened their theatre where they sponsor gay events, as well as performances for which the whole town turns out. And, most surprising of all—at least for those of us who think of the heartland as a backwater—Joe Wilson underwent a healing transformation by going back home. “I have to say that many of us who grow up in small towns and leave them behind,” he ruminates, “vowing never to go back—I think we are losing a lot.”
More Details: http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/news-and-features/features/movies/e3ib75f76acc2901e262c93e6116e713505
Giving Voice To The Cause—The Village Voice
June 08, 2010
Giving Voice to the Cause, the Rallying Cry of Human Rights Watch
By Nick Schager for The Village Voice,Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Enraged calls to action over injustice have always defined the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and this year’s 21st edition is no less vocal, laying bare, in more than 30 features from 25 countries, a world still striving to secure equality and justice for all. From the rocky battlefields of Afghanistan (Restrepo) to the small-town communities of Pennsylvania (Out in the Silence) to the farmlands and financial centers of India (Nero’s Guests), the long-running fest’s 2010 edition seethes, laments, and inspires, capturing through a variety of fictional and documentary works the efforts—sometimes noble, sometimes fruitless, rarely painless—of the marginalized and oppressed to reclaim their sovereign voices.
Though surprisingly silent on Israeli-Palestinian tensions, there’s nonetheless no shortage of conflict on display, much of it infused with furious indignation free of didacticism. Director Raoul Peck (Sometimes in April) turns to his native Haiti with the fest’s Centerpiece selection, Moloch Tropical, a Shakespearean portrait of a power-mad fictional modern-day president (loosely inspired by early-19th-century ruler Henri Christophe) ruined by greed, arrogance, and hubris. His story confined to the luxurious hilltop mansion where the poor country’s commander-in-chief authorizes torture and sexual assaults as his political standing disintegrates, Peck’s latest—a spiritual companion piece to Aleksander Sokurov’s Hirohito-in-defeat drama The Sun—is a hothouse study of a man and country crippled by corrupted ideals.
While Moloch Tropical interrogates one individual’s heart of darkness, Presumed Guilty excoriates an entire body politic via the plight of a young Mexico City man who was arrested in 2005 and convicted for murder despite a wholesale lack of evidence. Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith’s blistering documentary exposes a retrograde and rigged criminal justice system in which innocence isn’t assumed but must be established, and where basic legal logic and civil liberties take a backseat to the crooked self-interest of police officers, prosecutors, and judges.
Art proves a piercing vehicle for exposing wrongs and demanding rights in Thet Sambath’s Enemies of the People. Having lost his family to Cambodia’s Killing Fields in the late ‘70s, Sambath, a journalist by day, spent the past decade pointing his camera at those responsible for the atrocities, eventually befriending and coaxing admissions of treachery from rural killers as well as Pol Pot’s right-hand man, Nuon Chea. His documentary is a dogged quest for truth that epitomizes HRW, just as Chea’s cold, obstinate refusal to assume moral guilt for his crimes reveals the continuing need for the human rights struggle and, by extension, for this righteously angry fest.
More Details: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-08/film/rallying-cry-of-human-rights-watch/
American Library Association Review—OUT IN THE SILENCE
May 23, 2010
When Joe Wilson decided to place an announcement of his wedding to his partner, Dean Hamer, in the newspaper of the small town in which he grew up (Oil City, Pennsylvania), he inadvertently set off a storm of angry letters to the editor. He also got a very different letter from Kathy Springer, the mother of an out gay teen. In response, Wilson decided to return to Oil City and make the documentary Out in the Silence, which, like Small Town Gay Bar, highlights a poignant picture of gay life in small town America.
Out in the Silence focuses on the struggles of a gay high school student who is living with homophobia and daily harassment, and a lesbian couple who are working to open a theater in Oil City, and facing resistance because of their relationship. However, what makes Out in the Silence most moving are the stories of heterosexuals who transform because of their relationships with GLBT people. Wilson chronicles the development of his friendship with Reverend Mark Miklos, who was one of the people who wrote a letter to the editor decrying gay marriage, and who eventually accepts and embraces Wilson.
Kathy Springer’s story is also powerful, as she is politicized by the treatment of her son and the lack of support from school administrators, and decides to take the issue to the school district and then to state representatives.
Out in the Silence is recommended for all viewers and deserves a place in all library collections, particularly those libraries serving small and rural communities.
Reviewed by: Nicole Pasini
San Mateo County Library
“What they call an agenda, we call our lives”
May 22, 2010
Just Out: QDoc returns with vivid, vital portraits of lives lived queer
More Details: http://www.justout.com/arts.aspx?id=229
Discrimination Casts Shadow Over Progress
May 17, 2010
Letter-to-the-Editor in The Derrick (Oil City / Franklin, PA) - May 17, 2010:
Editor:
As the directors of “Out in the Silence,” a documentary about the struggle for visibility, justice and equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people in rural and small town America, we were greatly encouraged by our experiences in Venango County over the four years of making the film.
But as we travel to screening events across Pennsylvania, using it as a tool for community education and dialogue, we are troubled by reports that the problems at Franklin High School that are portrayed in the film continue or have gotten worse.
We are told by people who have first-hand experience that GLBT students at Franklin High continue to be bullied, harassed and violated with little or no intervention by school authorities. Moreover, we are told, teachers and counselors who show any interest in helping these students have actually been threatened by the school administration with retaliation and loss of employment.
This type of discrimination toward any minority group is unacceptable. It’s also a violation of the Pennsylvania Code of Conduct for Educators.
What can you do to help? If you have concerns about or know of any teacher or administrator at Franklin or any school who has engaged in negligent or discriminatory activity, it is possible to file an Educator Misconduct Complaint through the Professional Standards and Practices Commission. All complaints are handled in strict confidentiality.
For more information visit http://www.education.state.pa.us/ or call the Chief Counsel, Pennsylvania Department of Education, 717-783-0201.
As we prepare for the media attention that will accompany the film’s June screenings in the 2010 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival as well as national PBS broadcast this spring, we plan to talk about all of the good things that are happening in Venango County, but the situation at Franklin High casts a dark shadow that we simply cannot, will not, ignore.
If one believes in the concept that all people are created equal and deserving of equal rights and respect under the law, then those beliefs must include GLBT people. And if not now, when?
— Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer - Washington, D.C.
More Details: http://www.thederrick.com/news/2010-05-17/Letters|Columns/Discrimination_casts_shadow_over_progress.html
“OUT IN THE SILENCE Is A Moving, Enlightening Commentary On America’s Culture War”
May 01, 2010
Review by Kilian Melloy for EDGEBoston - Saturday May 1, 2010
In Out in the Silence, filmmakers—and spouses—Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer return to Joe’s home town of Oil City, Pennsylvania, after a wedding announcement in the local newspaper infuriates the town’s residents—but also inspires Kathy Springer, a single mother whose gay son has suffered anti-gay harassment at school, to write the couple a letter.
The boy is CJ Bills, an openly gay 16-year-old who was regarded as an athlete and accepted as one of the town’s own, until the moment he stood up on behalf of a classmate who was being bullied because he was perceived to be gay. In defending the bully’s victim, CJ outed himself—and from that day forward, his life at school became an unending series of torments. When CJ finally sought help from the school’s administration, he found himself blamed for the harassment he suffered. Worse, he was placed under arrest.
Joe and Dean, intrigued by CJ’s story, visit Oil City on a number of occasions over the next several years, documenting CJ’s story as he and his mother take the school to court. But the focus quickly widens to include Oil City as a whole: a local anti-gay activist, Diane Gramley, heads up the town chapter of the American Family Association, a group that—despite its name—makes a mission out of attacking gay and lesbian people and their families. Even as CJ’s case heads to court and his mother stands up for him in town hall meetings, Gramley is busy sending out “action alerts” and marching in the streets to denounce gays and warn that “They’re Coming to Your Town!”—the title of an AFA video that, without any sense of irony, seems to miss the point that Kathy and CJ are attempting to make: “they” aren’t coming to town… “they” are already here, and always have been.
As a study in the way in which a community is strained by the artificial emphasis placed on natural human differences, Out in the Silence is a moving, enlightening commentary on America’s culture war. (The film’s most priceless moment may be when one of Gramley’s followers whispers to her that Joe, and gays in general, are “brainwashed.”) As a look at the life of a tough, brave—but hurt—kid, the film is a touching personal document: Joe hands CJ a camera and invites him to film himself just being himself, and the resulting footage has more in common with MTV’s “Jackass” than with the Folsom Street Fair (which Gramley, at one point, seems to be referencing as she warns about the perils of gays descending on Oil City with their “agenda”).
Gramley is a fascinating counterpoint to Kathy and CJ. She uses the language of compassion, but her actions speak much more loudly—one of her “action alerts” urges local businesses and residents to boycott the efforts of a lesbian couple working to revitalize downtown. Gramley’s view seems to be that unless gays are routed out and their rights stripped away, straights will be forced to conform to some sort of gay “lifestyle,” and indeed the film includes footage of a local pastor echoing that general sentiment as he preaches against a hate crimes protection law, telling a crowd of followers that religious people will lose their freedom of worship if gays gain such protections.
But middle ground does exist; Joe discovers it when he forges a friendship with a local evangelical pastor and his wife. Neither “converts” the other, but both have their eyes opened to the discovery that they have more to talk about—and agree on—than they would have imagined.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
More Details: http://www.edgemiami.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=movies&sc2=reviews&sc3=features&id=104899
Special Jury Prize at Nashville Film Festival
April 29, 2010
OUT IN THE SILENCE has been awarded a Special Jury Prize for Braveness in Storytelling from the Nashville Film Festival.
More Details: http://nashvillefilmfestival.org
The Best Way To Combat Prejudice Is To Speak Out And Make Your Case
April 29, 2010
Miami Herald review by Rene Rodriguez:
CJ Springer is a personable 16-year-old jock who plays sports, loves rebuilding cars and has loads of friends at school. But one day he witnesses some bullies as they taunt a gay kid in his class and intervenes by announcing that he, too, is gay.
His reward is to be instantly ostracized by everyone he knows. Suddenly CJ is hazed by other students and even threatened with serious violence. The situation becomes so bad that his mother Kathy decides to school him at home: In the small, conservative town of Oil City, Pa., homophobia can be deadly.
In Out in the Silence, co-director Joe Wilson, who grew up in Oil City, returns to his hometown to tell CJ’s story, along with the tale of a lesbian couple in the process of renovating a vacant old Deco theater in the downtown district. Wilson’s presence—he’s also the narrator—is awkward: Michael Moore is the only filmmaker who can get away with starring in his own documentaries.
But the film’s exploration of homophobia in small-town America is fascinating, and Kathy’s unconditional support of her son, an immensely likable, funny kid, is inspiring. Their battle against a school curriculum that makes no provision for interfering with gay-bashing has a happy ending. Out in the Silence is proof that the best way to combat prejudice is to speak out and make your case, no matter how daunting the opposition.
More Details: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/29/1603657/webcams-are-college-boys-undoing.html
OUT IN THE SILENCE on Dakota Midday - South Dakota Public Broadcasting
April 29, 2010
Air Date: 04/26/2010
OUT IN THE SILENCE Co-Directors Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer interviewed by Dakota Midday’s Paul Guggenheimer prior to a screening in Rapid City.
LISTEN HERE:
More Details: http://www.sdpb.org/tv/shows.aspx?MediaID=58217&Parmtype=RADIO&ParmAccessLevel=sdpb-all
Filmmakers To Discuss Equality For Gays In Rapid City
April 26, 2010
KOTA ABC News, Rapid City, SD:
Last month, South Dakota and specifically Rapid City hit the national spotlight after the Rapid City Police Department outed lesbian Air Force sergeant Jene Newsome.
As a result, it’s likely not a coincidence that the American Civil Liberties Union is sponsoring the showing of the award winning film “Out In The Silence”. Those interested can attend the show at the Elks Theatre Monday night at 6:30 p.m. and stay afterward for discussion with the filmmakers.
The filmmaker, Joe Wilson decided to make film after his same–sex marriage announcement ignited a firestorm of controversy in his hometown. With the help of civil rights organizations, Wilson is taking his film to small towns throughout the U.S. where he says many gays continue to live in fear and isolation.
Kathy Kandt the director of the Black Hills Center for Equality says both the film and discussion are needed and relevant in this community. “The gays who are here are not very comfortable about being out and being who they are even though it has nothing to do with their job performance or anything else. They simply are just not comfortable,” she said.
There will be another showing of the film Tuesday at Black Hills State University.
Video Link Here:
More Details: http://www.kotatv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12379029
Independent Film Airing at Elks Theatre in Rapid City
April 26, 2010
KNBN - NBC News Center Rapid City, SD:
The Elks Theatre is hosting films from the “Voices of the Heartland” independent film series.
Monday night, “Out in the Silence” will be airing at 6:30 P.M., the film is about a struggle for inclusiveness and rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in small towns and rural communities.
The films director says the message is strong for people living in our area, where we are surrounded by small communities.
Joe Wilson, the Director of “Out in the Silence” says, “It’s really a hopeful story about people who had the courage to speak up about their lives and work for change in a small town. What we’re finding is the stories in this film really inspire people in other communities to come together, talk about the issues and hopefully try to create change in their own cities.”
If you can’t make it to the showing on Monday, “Out in the Silence” will also play Tuesday at Black Hills State University at 4:00 P.M.
See video clip at link.
More Details: http://www.newscenter1.tv/stories/5025.aspx
Day of Silence Events
April 16, 2010
Today, the National Day Of Silence, over 200 youth groups across the country screened OUT IN THE SILENCE to help draw attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools.
In partnership with GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network), OUT IN THE SILENCE DVDs and Discussion Guides were made available to those Gay/Straight Alliance groups at middle and high schools, colleges and universities who sent in the best plans for how to use the screening events to create change in their schools and communities.
The OUT IN THE SILENCE Campaign received many moving and imaginative requests from across the nation – from as far north as Anchorage, Alaska to as far south as Petal, Mississippi – from as rural as Garrett, Indiana (pop 5760) to as urban as the upper east side of Manhattan. Many of the youth identified with CJ, and described how they planned to show the film not just to friends and allies but to “the kids on the football team, so they’ll understand what it’s like.”
Every day thousands of students are silenced for fear of being who they are. OUT IN THE SILENCE salutes the courage shown by these young leaders for speaking out to help make schools safer for all students.
PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS(partial list):
Abraham Joshua Heschel High School, New York, NY ~ Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX~ Armijo High School, Fairfield, CA~ Ashland High School , Ashland, OR~ Badger Springs Middle School , Moreno Valley, CA ~ Barren County High School , Cave City, KY~ Bartlett High School, Anchorage, AK~ Bayside High School , Virginia Beach, VA~ Beyer High School, Modesto, CA ~ Binghamton University, Vestal, NY~ Birmingham Southern College, Birmingham, AL~ Burnsville High School, Burnsville, MN~ Butte College, Chico, CA ~ Cambridge High School, Cambridge, OH~ Canon City High School, Canon City, Co~ Carlisle High School, Carlisle, PA~ Central Dauphin East High School, Harrisburg, PA~ Chillicothe High School, Chillicothe, OH~ City High School, Grand Rapids, MI~ Clarke Central High School, Athens, GA~ Clovis North High School, Fresno, CA~ Codman Academy Public Charter School, Dorchester, MA~ Compton High School, Los Angeles, CA~ Concord High School , Belmont, NH~ Council Rock High School South, Newtown, PA~ Covina High School, West Covina, CA~ Danville High School, Danville, PA ~ Delaware Valley Regional High School, Frenchtown, NJ~ Dobie High School , Houston, TX~ East Islip High School , East Islip, NY~ East Pennsboro High School, Harrisburg, PA~ Eastern Connecticut Griswold High School, Griswold, CT~ Erie East High School, Erie, PA~ Forest Grove High School, Forest Grove, OR~ Garrett High School, Garrett, IN~ Germantown High School, Germantown, WI~ GLOW, Ft. Worth, TX~ Greely High School, Cumberland, ME~ Greenhill High School, Dallas, TX~ H.H. Ellis Technical High School, Waurgean, CT~ Harry S Truman High School, Bronx, NY~ Hempfield High School, Landisville, PA~ Henrietta Senior High, Henrietta, NY~ Heritage High School Maryville, TN ~ Hockessin High School, Hockessin, DE~ Hollywood Hills High School, Fort Lauderdale, FL ~ Kershaw High School, Kershaw, SC~ J. Sargeant Reynolds High School , Richmond, VA ~ James Bowie High School, Arlington, TX~ KRCB OutBeat Youth Radio, Santa Rosa, CA~ Lawrence Woodmere Academy, Woodmere, NY~ LBJ High School, Austin, TX~ Leavenworth High School, Leavenworth, KS~ Lebanon High School, Lebanon, NH~ Leo Hayes High School, New Maryland, NB~ Lincoln High School , Ypsilanti, MI~ Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN~ Lin-Wood Cooperative School, Lincoln, NH~ Los Angeles Community College, Los Angeles, CA~ Los Angeles High School for the Arts, Los Angeles, CA~ Los Banos High School, Los Banos, CA~ Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA~ Lower Dauphin High School, Hummelstown, PA~ Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY~ Marymount School of NY, New York, NY~ Meadowcreek High School, Norcross, GA~ Miami Coral Parks High School, Miami, FL~ Miami Sunset Sr High School, Miami, FL ~ Middleboro High School, Middleboro, MA~ Millikin University, Decatur, IL~ Montclair Kimberly Academy, North Caldwell, NJ~ Moreno Valley High School, Moreno Valley, CA~ Millersville University, Millersville, PA~ Northeastern High School, Manchester, PA~ Old Bridge High School, Old Bridge, NJ~ Olney Friends School, Barnesville, OH~ Orestimba High School , Turlock, CA~ Overland High School, Aurora, CO~ Palmer High School, Colorado Springs, CO~ Parish Episcopal High School, Dallas, TX~ Penna Highlands Community College, Johnstown, PA~ Pentucket Regional, West Newberry, MA~ Peoples Academy High School, Morrisville, VT ~ Perkiomen Valley High School, Collegeville, PA ~ Pike High School, Indianapolis, IN ~ Pius Catholic High School, Lincoln, NE~ Pollard Middle School, Needham, MA~ Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN~ Red Lion High School, Red Lion, PA~ Reservoir High School, Laurel, MD ~ Ridgeview High School, Elgin, SC~ Rockville High School, Vernon, CT ~ Santa Paula High School, Santa Paula, CA ~ Schalmont High School, Schenectady, NY ~ Schenectady High School, Schenectady, NY ~ School Without Walls Middle School, Rocherster, NY ~ Shippensburg High School, Shippensburg, PA~ Solanco High School, Quarryville, PA~ Spring Grove Area High School, Spring Grove, PA~ Spring High School, Spring, TX~ Suffield High School, West Suffield, CT ~ Summit High School, Fonatana, CA~ Susquehanna Township High School, Harrisburg, PA~ Tualatin High School, Tualatin, OR~ Taunton High School and Silver City Teen Center, Taunton, MA~ Thomas Jefferson High School , Alexandria, VA ~ University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ ~ University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN~ Upper St. Clair High School, Upper St. Clair, PA~ Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, Brooklyn, NY~ Walhalla High School, Walhalla, SC~ Wallenpaupack High School, Lords Valley, PA~ Walter Panas High School, Cortlandt Manor, NY~ Webster Thomas High School, Webster, NY ~ Western Connecticut State University, Hopewell Junction, NY~ Westerville Central High School, Westerville, OH~ Westford Academy, Westford, MA~ Westgate High School, Thunder Bay, ON~ Westmount Charter School, Calgary, AB~ Westside High School, Houston, TX~ William Allen , Allentown, PA~ William Penn Senior High School, York, PA~ William Tennent High School, Warminster, PA~ Wyoming High School, Wyoming, OH ~ YCP Lambda, York, PA~ Yorktown High School, Arlington, VA ~ Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH
More Details:
National Day of Silence website: http://dayofsilence.org
GLSEN, the Day of Silence organizer: http://glsen.org
Film Aims to Promote Inclusion, Fairness for GLBT
April 16, 2010
By Lebanon Daily News
A screening of “Out in the Silence,” described in a Philadelphia Inquirer review as “a stunning documentary,” will be held at the Allen Theatre in Annville at 6 p.m. Monday, April 19.
The documentary was produced in association with the Sundance Institute and Penn State Public Broadcasting and was an official selection of the 2010 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.
The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, representatives from area organizations and ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Nancy Hopkins. The session will be aimed at engaging the audience in a conversation about fairness, equality and inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people - or GLBT - in small towns and rural communities in Pennsylvania and across the country, according to a news release.
General admission will be $5, and students will be admitted free by showing their ID at the door.
The screening at the Allen Theatre is co-sponsored by the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the LGBT Community Center Coalition of Central PA and Freedom Rings of Lebanon Valley College.
Exploring topics ranging from religion, safe schools and economic development to discrimination, tolerance and understanding, “Out in the Silence” offers a compelling model for civic engagement and dialogue and is an ideal tool for bringing people of all ages together to begin the process of building bridges on issues that divide communities, according to one review.
After Wilson’s own same-sex marriage announcement ignited a firestorm of controversy in Oil City, the small western Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago, “Out in the Silence” follows the stories of a mother who takes a courageous stand for her gay teenage son, an evangelical pastor and his wife who befriend Wilson and begin to rethink their most deeply-held beliefs, and local residents who must decide what their cherished smalltown values really mean, according to the release.
While the film has been broadcast on the Pennsylvania Public Television Network and will be available to all PBS stations this month, Wilson and Hamer are working with colleges and universities, community groups and a variety of civil- and human-rights organizations to take the film to smaller cities and towns and rural communities, where GLBT people often continue to live in fear and isolation, the filmmakers said in the release.
“What better places to promote dialogue and mutual understanding,” Wilson said in the release, “than in public libraries, churches, schools, colleges and universities, community centers and theaters; those great institutions where families, friends and neighbors in small towns and rural communities come together to talk about and develop solutions to the most challenging issues of the day?”
Wilson and Hamer are hoping that the Lebanon County event attracts people from across the spectrum ready and willing to engage in constructive dialogue, including students, parents and educators, clergy, health and social-service providers, civic leaders, and anyone concerned about the well-being of the community.
Previous community and campus screenings of “Out in the Silence” have been successful, according to the release. For example, after a program at the University of Pittsburgh-Titusville, professor Mary Ann Caton wrote, “Several of our students have been deeply touched by the film. I’ve learned that several who went into the auditorium that night went in with some hostility toward the gay community. But these students have begun to rethink their positions as a result of seeing the film and engaging in conversation with the filmmakers and others in the audience.”
At Marlboro College in Vermont, Student Affairs Coordinator Chris Lenois said, “‘Out in the Silence’ demonstrates that polarizing issues are best handled when people are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints without lashing out or retreating into their own moral corner, which is probably the most valuable lesson any young person could learn.”
According to organizers, an encouraging event took place recently at the First United Methodist Church in Lancaster. Sponsored by nearly 20 religious congregations in the area, the screening of the film was attended by more than 200 people and was followed by a respectful dialogue. A clip of that conversation can be seen on the project’s Facebook page at http://Facebook.com/outinthesilence.
More Details: http://www.ldnews.com/valleylife/ci_14897458
ABC News Channel 8—Let’s Talk Live About ‘Out in the Silence’
April 07, 2010
Documentary on Small Town Gay Life Hits Home
April 03, 2010
By Renatta Signorini
LEADER TIMES, Kittanning, PA
Saturday, April 3, 2010
A typical night with friends easily could turn into a gay-bashing session with Brian Bish as the target.
He recalled one night being followed to his Walkchalk home by a group of baseball bat-wielding men in a pickup.
“They were screaming homophobic slurs,” he said.
The message in a documentary shown Thursday night at the Kittanning Public Library resonated with Bish. He remembers abuse from county residents while living in Walkchalk as a gay young adult in the 1990s.
“It’s such a perfect image of what everything felt like,” Bish said.
“Out in the Silence,” created by partners Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, addresses the struggles of gay or lesbian people in rural areas and small towns, based on interviews in Wilson’s hometown of Oil City in Venango County. A crowd of about 30 people attended the library’s screening and some spoke of their own battles with local residents who do not agree with the lifestyles of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender (GLBT).
Bish was not able to attend the screening, but watched it Thursday night twice, once with his partner of nine years. They live in Connecticut.
“It really made it real to see real people in a small town” going through similar situations as what he faced in Armstrong County, he said.
Bish’s niece, Sheena Van Dyke of Natrona Heights, attended the screening Thursday night and was the first to offer comments in a question-and-answer session with the filmmakers. She thanked them for creating the film and said she hopes it will change minds of those who discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.
“Because I saw what (Bish) went through and I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had lost him due to people’s ignorance,” Van Dyke said.
Bish left the county for Connecticut in 1997 when he was in his early 20s, partly because he wanted to live in a more accepting community.
“I wanted to be somewhere where I wasn’t known as the town queer,” Bish said.
By then, he had come out to family and friends over the course of several years after realizing it himself at age 19 when he was in college at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. The first person he told was his mother, Bish remembered.
“I’m so fortunate to have my family’s support,” Bish said.
“Out in the Silence” follows a gay teen in Oil City — among other characters in the town — who had to leave high school because of the harassment he received from classmates. Though Bish wasn’t directly targeted in high school or college, he was when visiting at home on weekends and by a former employer after he told others of his sexual preference.
“It just kind of adds to the fear of coming out,” he said.
Bish tried to shield his supportive family from the harassment he said he received.
“I didn’t want them to go through what I was going through,” he said.
As far as advice for others living in a rural community, Bish suggested finding close family and friends to provide support and reach out to organizations willing to help. He is a member of the board of directors for The Trevor Project, a 24-hour crisis and helpline for teens who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning their sexuality.
Though he moved away from Walkchalk, Bish said, “You don’t need to leave to be OK.”
Some people who attended Thursday night’s screening spoke of harassment they’ve been the victim of or have witnessed. Bish said there are more gay or lesbian people in Armstrong County than many would think and threats thrown around by community members can be hurtful.
“It was a nightmare,” he recalled. “It creates that environment of fear.”
Renatta Signorini can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 724-543-1303, ext. 219.
More Details: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/leadertimes/news/s_674746.html
Kittanning Library’s Showing of Film on Gay Life Draws Lone Protester
April 02, 2010
By Renatta Signorini
LEADER TIMES, Kittanning, PA
Friday, April 2, 2010
After threats of violence this week and other negative phone calls, a lone protester was the only voice of opposition outside the Kittanning Public Library on last night.
The library had been receiving phone calls about its Thursday night screening of a documentary addressing the struggles of people who are gay or lesbian in rural areas and small towns.
“Every negative call has been offset with a positive call,” said library director Amanda Gearhart.
Gearhart said the single protester appeared outside the library, walked about with a sign for a short while and then left before the showing of the film.
“Out in the Silence” is a documentary created by directors and partners Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer. The film was created after Wilson and Hamer’s marriage announcement in an Oil City newspaper caused controversy in Wilson’s Venango County hometown.
An Oil City mother of a gay teen being abused in school contacted them men after the announcement appeared in The Derrick, and the idea for the documentary was born.
During the peaceful hourlong screening, an audience of about 30 people reacted with groans, laughter and applause after comments from those who were interviewed. People of all sexual orientation and ages attended the screening.
Some had traveled from the Oil City area, Clarion and Pittsburgh to watch the film and others were from the county.
The documentary showed the way teenager C.J. Bills was treated in Oil City after his classmates learned he was gay. Marcelle McMillen of Ford City said during a question-and-answer session following the documentary that pushing acceptance in schools is a good place to start breaking down barriers and discrimination.
Her brother committed suicide last year at 44, she said. He was a gay man with AIDS, a disease of the immune system, who was asked to leave a county school in the 10th grade when classmates found out about his sexual orientation.
McMillen said she watched her brother’s life slip away because “people didn’t love him because he was gay.”
Two others in attendance agreed that schools are a good place to start with an equality message and suggested contacting local school board members.
Two members of Pittsburgh organizations discussed ways county members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community (GLBT) can reach out for help. The Delta Foundation has a Western Pennsylvania Advocacy Initiative and Alliance with the goal of changing minds about perceptions of people who are GLBT.
Ted Hoover of Persad Center, Inc. said he has been charged with creating “safe communities” in the region.
“What we want to do is identify community allies, community leaders, community organizations” and use them as a resource team, he said.
“We can’t do it without Kittanning,” Hoover said “We need you to tell us what our next steps are.”
A Kittanning police officer and others involved with the screening kept watch at the library’s entrance last night. An officer was sent to the event after a threatening phone call made to the library Tuesday at about 5 p.m. The anonymous caller warned employees to make sure their health insurance was “paid up” for last night.
Wilson and Hamer, who live in Washington D.C., have shown the documentary in about 30 small communities in Pennsylvania, most recently in New Castle, Lawrence County, and at Slippery Rock University.
Renatta Signorini can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 724-543-1303, ext. 219.
Documentary Shown in Peace
April 02, 2010
by Nathan Lasher for The Kittanning Paper
(OITS Note: The Kittanning Paper is operated by Family Life Church International)
The documentary “Out in the Silence” produced by Joseph Wilson and gay partner Dean Hamer was shown to approximately 35 people at the Kittanning Public Library yesterday in a peaceful atmosphere.
“Things have gone very peacefully,” said Member of the Board of Trustees for the library, Louise Baker. “Everybody is friendly and introducing themselves.”
Only one protester was witnessed demonstrating for a few minutes across the street from the library approximately 15 minutes before the documentary began. However, he soon gave up.
Security for the event had to be increased due to an anonymous phone call that was received Tuesday. “I was sorry to hear that threats had come in,” said attendee Thomas Waters while waiting outside. “Anonymous threats don’t move anyone on either side of the issue any closer together.”
Waters, an avid blogger about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues (thomascwaters.com) was raised in Ford City until the age of five, and his father still lives there. “I invited him to come with me, but he told me that he had other obligations tonight.” Waters said.
When asked about the showing of the documentary, Waters said, “I think it’s really important. The film is a tremendous documentary to talk about small town America and small town Pennsylvania. It opens up a dialogue among people, and the more we talk about these things the more everybody can understand how important it is for everyone to be able to be out and be comfortable living with who they are.”
More Details: http://www.kittanningpaper.com/2010/04/02/documentary-shown-in-peace/5900
Oil City Discrimination Declining
April 02, 2010
By: Liz Glazier, The Online Rocket of Slippery Rock University
Posted: 4/2/10
SRU goes to extensive measures to make sure there’s no discrimination or negative actions done to students, faculty or staff members who are part of the LGBTQI community.
Tuesday night, the university confirmed this by having an open panel about LGBTQI issues on campus and talking about what the community can do to make everyone feel more welcome.
The night began with a movie shown in the Advanced Technology and Science Building called “Out in the Silence,” a documentary by Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, a gay married couple who wanted to create a film that would spread awareness about the violence and issues gay people face in today’s society.
Wilson grew up in Oil City, but moved to Washington, D.C., and was inspired to do the documentary after sending Hamer and his wedding announcement into his hometown paper, The Derrick. After the announcement was published, there were numerous letters to the editor asking why such a sin was published and that it was a shame the paper would run the photo of two newlywed gay men. One writer went as far as saying, “It would have been better off if you weren’t born.”
Wilson and his partner decided to leave Washington, D.C., and return to Oil City to begin the documentary.
There they met a 16-year-old boy named CJ Bills, a student at Oil City High School who came out and was immediately harassed, ultimately making him decide to complete his education online.
The movie showed the journey Bills and his mother went through to make sure discrimination in the schools never happened again. They were eventually successful by enacting a diversity workshop and stricter punishment for discrimination acts into the curriculum, and Bills was able to return to school feeling comfortable and more welcome.
After the documentary was completed, a panel of gay rights activists including Wilson; Hamer, and Linda Henderson, a lesbian SRU alumni who also appeared in the movie, talked about the film and answered questions from the audience.
Wilson said his main goal for the movie was to create a tool for activism to take flight in areas such as small-town Pennsylvania and will hopefully expand the movement outside of the state.
“Knowing what is was like to be gay in Oil City at one time, going back and seeing how it had changed made me see that life there was better and there has been progress,” he said. “I celebrate that, yet I am still frustrated with the slow progress.”
A student who was in the audience stood and spoke about how he also grew up in Oil City and commented on how discrimination had slowly gotten better.
“It is slowly changing, but it definitely is getting better since this movie was filmed,” the student said.
Wilson said a big lesson that he, as well as the whole crew, learned while filming the documentary was how attacking people who didn’t necessarily have the same views as them wasn’t the solution and only pushed those people away.
“We naively and arrogantly figured that if we spoke the truth about what we knew, others would listen to us and believe what we were saying,” Wilson said. “That obviously wasn’t the case.”
In the documentary, people who were against gay rights or turned their cheek to discrimination were highlighted. Many times, Wilson tried to confront them about their beliefs but many didn’t want to listen.
He was able to speak with a local pastor and his wife and got them to better understand of why gay people should have the same rights as everyone else. This understanding is something Wilson hopes all people who see the film will have.
“We want to use this film as a tool to create somewhat of a support group for people to talk about these issues,” Wilson said. “It is important in the community we live in to provide these support groups.”
Ashley Ranck, a 21-year-old junior creative writing major, is the current president of RockOut and spoke with the panel about how the gay community is viewed on campus.
“I feel comfortable about being gay on this campus,” she said. “There are definitely things we could change, though.”
Ranck said that last year, RockOut put up flyers about gay rights and several were stomped on and torn down.
“There are always going to be things we can change and improve on campus,” she said. “But overall, the atmosphere is welcoming and I thank Slippery Rock for that.”
Dr. Colleen Cooke, a professor of therapeutic recreation, spoke about the Respect statement issued by the university, saying it was prohibited to deny any LGBTQI member rights that other students, faculty or staff had. Wilson asked the audience to reach out and help the movement towards making LGBTQI members feel more welcome and accepted.
“Make us proud Slippery Rock,” Wilson said. “Join the fight [for] human rights and do what’s best for your community.” © Copyright 2010 The Rocket
Pittsburgh Gay Groups Show Support of Library
April 01, 2010
The Kittanning Paper—(OITS Note: The Kittanning Paper is operated by Family Life Church International)
Several Pittsburgh organizations are planning to be at the Kittanning Library tonight for the showing of the film Out in the Silence.
The film details events that unfold when the announcement of filmmaker Joe Wilson’s wedding to another man ignites a firestorm of controversy in his small Pennsylvania hometown of Oil City.
Gary Van Horn, President of the Delta Foundation that organizes the Pittsburgh Pride festivals, said Armstrong County has particular significance to his organization.
“We’re interested in all 23 counties in western Pennsylvania,” he said. “In Armstrong County, it is legal to discriminate for employment, public accommodation and housing based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression.”
Van Horn said his advocacy organization has worked with the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender (GLBT) community in western Pennsylvania since 1995. The Delta Foundation is funded by private foundation money, endowment, and fund raising.
“Several of us are coming to support the folks showing this film,” Van Horn said. “We also want to support local folks that are coming out and have a dialogue to understand the GLBT community. First thing we need to understand is there are different viewpoints in the world. Having the conversation is the first step. It turns some from haters to understanders.”
Van Horn said that he has been in contact with the Library, Kittanning Borough Police and the Pennsylvania State Police.
“He called and offered to pay for police protection if we felt we needed it,” Library Director Amanda Gearhart said.
“We have interest in everything going well. We don’t want to see any violence,” Van Horn said. “We are working with state police and local police to make sure there is enough security in place. There will be police at the event.”
Van Horn said two other Pittsburgh-based groups are also planning to be in attendance when the event begins at 7PM. “There will be a representative from the Steel-City Stonewall Democrats, a political organization that fights on the political end for equality (based on Stonewall riots of New York) and also someone from PERSAD, the second oldest GLBT counseling center in America located in Pittsburgh with a satellite office in Washington and outreaches to Butler and Armstrong counties.”
While no one could confirm the authenticity of phone calls, several groups are alleged to be planning demonstrations in front of the library while the film is being shown.
Gearhart said she is still optimistic the film will lead to a positive dialogue. “For every negative phone call, we have had a positive one today,” she said.
Kittanning Public Library Takes Threat Seriously
April 01, 2010
by Renatta Signorini for the Kittanning Leader-Times:
A Kittanning police officer will be on hand at the borough library for tonight’s screening of a documentary addressing the struggles of people who are gay and/or lesbians in rural areas and small towns.
A threat was telephoned to the library Tuesday at about 5 p.m. Library director Amanda Gearhart said the man on the phone spoke with a worker and said that he hoped employees’ health insurance is “paid up” for Thursday night.
“We have to take it seriously,” Gearhart said. “I’m not expecting problems, but I’m prepared for problems.”
Police Chief Ed Cassesse said his department is investigating the call. An officer will be at the library, he said, “to be safe.”
Previously, an officer had not been asked to provide security at the event, Cassesse said.
The documentary “Out in the Silence” will be shown tonight at the library at 7. It was created by co-directors and partners Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer after their 2004 marriage announcement in an Oil City newspaper set off controversy in Wilson’s Venango County hometown. A mother of a gay teen being abused in school contacted the men after the announcement appeared in The Derrick, and the idea for the documentary was born.
Gearhart said she was sure the threat was related to the screening.
Wilson and Hamer will hold a question-and-answer session following the screening. Wilson said in a Monday interview that he hopes the screenings can change negative perceptions and promote acceptance and equality throughout rural communities, including within schools, churches and families.
More Details: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_674401.html
Screening Features Documentary on Oil City Gay Marriage
March 30, 2010
By Renatta Signorini
LEADER TIMES, Kittanning, PA
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Just because you don’t know about it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Despite some thought that rural towns are not home to gay and lesbian people, “I guarantee that there’s quite a large underground, not visible, community there,” said Joe Wilson, who co-directed a film addressing that topic after controversy in his hometown of Oil City in Venango County.
A free screening of “Out in the Silence,” a documentary directed by Wilson and his partner Dean Hamer, will be held Thursday at the Kittanning Public Library at 7 p.m. The film documents the reactions of Oil City area residents in Venango County after the couple’s wedding announcement caused controversy throughout the community.
Library director Amanda Gearhart said Wilson requested a screening and she agreed because of the lack of awareness and support in the area. The closest groups and agencies supporting people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) are in Pittsburgh and Erie.
Because local residents in the GLBT community may be facing the same kinds of problems that Wilson faced growing up in Oil City, Gearhart said she hopes anyone with an open mind or needing support will attend the screening.
“There has not been any kind of event or group that’s in Armstrong County,” she said.
After Wilson announced his marriage to Hamer in his hometown newspaper, The Derrick, in 2004, letters to the editor expressed outrage by community members for about a year afterwards, Wilson said. One contact — by a mother of a gay teen being abused in school — brought Wilson back to Oil City and the idea was born for a documentary of the struggles for GLBT people in small towns and rural communities.
“The film kind of happened organically without a plan,” said Wilson, who lives with Hamer in Washington D.C.
“Out in the Silence,” co-directed by Wilson and Hamer, was produced in association with Penn State Public Broadcasting and the Sundance Institute. The documentary has been screened in about 30 small communities in Pennsylvania, most recently in New Castle, Lawrence County, and at Slippery Rock University in Butler County.
Wilson said yesterday that Kittanning is “strikingly similar” to his hometown, in appearance — both are situated along the Allegheny River — and visibility of the GLBT community. He hopes that community leaders and elected officials attend the screening.
Wilson and Hamer hold question-and-answer sessions following the screenings and Wilson said they have seen diversity in participants and hear stories of prejudice and inequality, as well as acceptance. After living in Oil City, Wilson said he hopes the screenings can change negative perceptions and promote acceptance and equality throughout rural communities, including schools, churches and families.
The couple is branching out to other states with their film and promoting community events to bring attention to the problems of discrimination and inequality, Wilson said.
Featured in the documentary are Oil City residents taking a stand against discrimination or re-evaluating their beliefs in light of Wilson and Hamer’s marriage announcement. The documentary — acting as a tool for civic involvement and dialogue — explores topics of religion, safe schools and economic development, intimidation, discrimination and resistance.
Renatta Signorini can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 724-543-1303, ext. 219.
More Details: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/leadertimes/news/s_674023.html#
Out in the Silence Campaign featured in THE NATION
March 18, 2010
HEY, SAILOR…
by JOANN WYPIJEWSKI
This article appeared in the April 5, 2010 edition of The Nation.
I’m not sure where or when I got the idea, but at some point in my childhood I
asked my mother what “homosexuality” meant. “Well, honey,” she said, pausing,
“that’s something sailors do.”
“Like Daddy?” I asked. My father had been in the Pacific in World War II, and his
sailor hats and dress uniforms, pressed and hanging in an attic chest, held for me
the greatest fascination.
“No, no,” she quickly clarified. “Sailors who make a living of it,” or words to that
effect. Later I learned that “venereal disease” too was “something sailors get”: again,
“not Daddy”; those others, who spend endless stretches at sea, a lifetime of manly
togetherness punctuated by ribald Crossing the Line ceremonies and visits to raffish
ports of call. For the longest time I had no idea what maritime life involved but that
it was wrapped in sex and secrets.
Eric Massa, 50, was a Navy man for twenty-four years. A Catholic, like me, growing
up at the same time as me, when the church didn’t speak to its children of sex, let
alone homosex, he followed in the footsteps of his daddy, also career Navy, and
married like his daddy, had children like his daddy. On those long stints at sea he’d
grasp the tired flesh of fellow sailors, offering “the Massa massage.” If former
shipmates are to be believed, he once rousted a sleeping junior officer by pawing the
man’s privates. He climbed up into the bunk of another sleeping mate and tried to
“snorkel him,” meaning he either smothered the fellow with cock and balls or
wanted to blow him, possibly both. Massa was drunk, naturally, and nobody
reported a thing.
The ex-shipmates who are talking now claim they feared retaliation then, and maybe
that’s true, but a cousin of mine who spent years in the Navy and Marines once
remarked that it was common as rain to discover guys on ships canoodling in
remarked that it was common as rain to discover guys on ships canoodling in
closets. Maybe it all just didn’t seem so big a deal until Massa, now former
Congressman Massa, went on TV to say that while in hindsight inappropriate, there
was nothing at all sexual about his groping, wrestling, tickling, tussling and salty-
talking with his young male Congressional staffers, with whom he also roomed.
Certainly nothing gay. “Why don’t you ask my wife, ask my friends, ask the 10,000
sailors I served with in the Navy?” he shot back at Larry King. It was the shot too
far.
To those who may have missed this version of March Madness, Massa is the center
of Washington’s latest sex scandal. Retired military and a lifetime Republican who
quit the party over the Iraq War, he fit the Democrats’ ideal candidate profile and in
2008 won a traditionally Republican seat in upstate New York. Republicans began
plotting almost immediately to oust him, but Democrats weren’t happy with Massa,
either. He supported some of the president’s priorities but blasted others, regarded
Rahm Emanuel as the “son of the devil’s spawn” but was surprised that any of that
should bother anyone. In February one of his male staff complained of sexual
harassment. There had been a wedding, Massa had danced with a bridesmaid, and
afterward, boys being boys, the staffer suggested what Massa could do with the
woman. “What I really ought to be doing is fracking you,” Massa retorted, ruffling
the young man’s hair and laughing. Massa was drunk. Of course he was.
On March 3 the Congressman said he was just “a salty old sailor” and announced his
resignation. Then he went on radio to say that the Democrats had it in for him,
particularly Emanuel, who once poked Massa in the chest and yelled at him for not
being a team player while they were both naked in the Congressional showers. Enter
Glenn Beck, who latched on to the story, not to explore its most intriguing detail—
those curtainless shower stalls and the dick-swinging games of powerful men—but
to demonstrate how “the Democratic Party is out to destroy this man…the future of
this country is at stake!” Massa was bound to disappoint. Nobody had forced him
out, he said, before rambling on about the price of independence, the daily hours
spent begging for cash, his broken spirits, our broken system, his bout with cancer
and, yes, a groping or tickle fight with staff on his fiftieth birthday. At one point
Massa flipped open a scrapbook, pointing to pictures of a 1983 shipboard ceremony
upon crossing the international dateline and telling his flummoxed host, “If you
were to take this out of context today—can you imagine transporting back to this
today? It looks like an orgy in Caligula.”
As with men’s magazines of the 1950s, some see only the bodybuilder, others the
object of desire, others a mix of both. Who can say what Massa sees in his
mementos and male staff? It’s almost always the case with sex scandals, though, that
beyond the rococo, there’s a harsher, unspoken reality, a trap so deeply
beyond the rococo, there’s a harsher, unspoken reality, a trap so deeply
commonplace that nobody calls it scandal. Here call it private life or roughhousing
among men; call it a “relapse” into youthful experimentation or just the things guys
do together after drinking a six-pack or several gin and tonics. Call it anything but
the closet, because if it’s that then it’s sexual, and if it’s sexual then you’re queer, and
if you’re queer you might be toast—still, today, in 2010, let alone when people of
Massa’s generation were at the door of sexual awakening.
While the bottom was dropping out for Massa, 3,000 miles away California State
Senator Roy Ashburn was being arrested for drunk driving, having been stopped by
the Highway Patrol on his way back from a gay club with another man. A few days
later Massa told Larry King it was an insult to gays to suggest that he or anyone in
this day and age might be in the closet, Ashburn, 55, a divorced father of four and a
reliably antigay Republican pol for fourteen years, went on the radio and uttered
“the words that have been so difficult for me for so long”: “I am gay.”
It’s easy to get moralistic about Ashburn, and many bloggers have, but oppression is
not the mask’s companion only in sympathetic cases, those anonymous ones where
people carry secrets and have no staffs, no profile, no power except to hurt
themselves and maybe the people they lie to. The Virginia merchant spending hours
in the basement feverishly texting a paramour—the first he has allowed himself in
forty-five years of living—while upstairs his wife plans the family vacation. The big
old queen in Indiana recently married to a woman he loves—she saved his life, he
says—but spending every waking hour in a gay cafe that isn’t really gay because no
one says the word except in whispers. The queer husbands in Vermont who
somehow can’t come out, or need the wife, need the marriage and the kids, but also
need to tell, so form a small, sad brotherhood of support.
That’s speaking only of men, a handful I know or know of, but everywhere there are
queer men and women who don’t fit the now-mainstream image of pretty young
things forming the Gay-Straight Alliance at school, competing on reality shows,
making it on the Human Rights Campaign’s literature for marriage or military
service. Often they live in small towns in rural areas, places like Corning, New York,
where Massa resides, or Bakersfield, California, which Ashburn represented. It
shouldn’t take petty scandals to remind us that for millions the fundamental
question of life isn’t whether they can legally kill someone in a war or cut the
wedding cake but whether it’s going to take all their courage just to get up every
morning and be who they are.
As the Massa flap was wearing itself out, I was in Columbia, South Carolina, at a
screening of a new documentary called OUT IN THE SILENCE . It’s about a teenage boy in
Oil City, Pennsylvania, who comes out almost by accident, to defend another kid,
and discovers high school is a living hell. It has a happy ending, of sorts: the kid
doesn’t kill himself; his mother fights for him; he’s driven from school but gets a
$4,000 settlement for the loss of his education; there’s a small queer community
that’s now pushing an anti-discrimination ordinance in town. The theater was
jammed, a scenario that greeted the filmmakers, Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer,
earlier in Charleston and Spartanburg and almost every small city and town where
they’ve taken the film. The screenings become forums, places to meet where there
has been no place, to talk where there is a desire to talk but little occasion.
“For the longest time, the gay movement told people in rural areas, Just move to the
city and come out,” Joe said afterward. He was raised in Oil City, and one sister still
won’t talk to him. “That’s not an answer if you’re connected to your family, your job,
your town. And you can’t expect oppressed individuals to take the whole burden of
coming out on themselves.” The closet is still a product of culture; its persistence the
blackmail note waiting to be written for any sexual outlaw, along the arc of the
Kinsey scale, even salty old sailors who just want some fun with the boy
More Details: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100405/wypijewski
Promoting Political Action
March 14, 2010
Tolerance Increasing in Poconos: Following Film Screening Panelists Note an Improvement in the Treatment of Gay, Lesbian Youths
By Dan Berrett
Pocono Record Writer
Tolerance of gay and lesbian young people is on the rise in the Poconos, though work remains to be done before full acceptance is achieved, a panel of speakers said Saturday.
“There are still issues,” said Anita Lee, of the organization Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, or PFLAG, of Monroe County. “But the Poconos has gotten better.”
Lee and others spoke after a screening of “Out in the Silence” at Pocono Community Theater in East Stroudsburg on Saturday afternoon; it was attended by about 70 people.
The documentary examines what happens in the small Pennsylvania town of Oil City after the filmmakers place their same-sex marriage announcement in the local newspaper.
At first, outrage arose in the Rust Belt town. One letter to the editor of the local newspaper advised the couple, “it would have been better for you not to have been born.”
One of the filmmakers, Joe Wilson, grew up in Oil City with his gay identity closeted. But he returned to his hometown, in part, because of the reaction his announcement sparked. But, more pressingly, he was summoned by a letter. A mother of a gay son, who lived in Oil City and was being bullied, wrote to him looking for help.
The young man, C.J. Springer, described life in his school as “eight hours of pure hell,” because administrators turned a deaf ear and blind eye as students roughed up the young man in the halls.
Lee, of PFLAG of Monroe County, said bullying remained a concern for students in Poconos schools.
Statewide, more than half of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students reported being physically harassed during the past year. Nearly all said they regularly heard the word “gay” used derisively, according to a 2007 study by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
Still, the panelists noted that conditions locally had improved.
“Years ago, no one was allowed to go to a prom (with their same-sex partner) and now they are,” said Steven Barthold-Rivera, faculty co-sponsor of the Stroudsburg High School Gay Straight Alliance.
The alliance is one of several in local high schools. East Stroudsburg High School North has the longest standing one locally, and progress toward one is being made in Pocono Mountain, Barthold-Rivera said.
The clubs provide a venue for gay and lesbian students who feel isolated and fearful because of their identity. At times, they are suicidal, said Barthold-Rivera.
“There’s power in numbers, there’s unity, and they’re not alone,” he said.
Saturday’s event featured a panel of speakers, each of whom outlined resources for young gay and lesbian students, such as Rainbow Youth, or for their families, such as PFLAG.
“When children come out of the closet, their parents go into the closet,” Lee said.
The speakers also promoted political action. They encouraged attendees to call their state representatives to support bills that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The screening was hosted by Pocono Action Lambda Society, and sponsored by more than 50 businesses, organizations, church groups and individuals.
More Details: http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100314/NEWS/3140351
OUT IN THE SILENCE DVD Available To Watch Now on Amazon Video-On-Demand!
February 28, 2010
The DVD of OUT IN THE SILENCE, with all the special features, will be released March 9, 2010. But you can watch the feature film early on Amazon Video on Demand for just a $1.99! ...right now.. before the release date!
Please share the link with friends and family.
Controversial Film Comes To Patterson Library
February 17, 2010
The Observer of Dunkirk, NY
WESTFIELD, NY - Patterson Library has announced a free screening of the film “Out in the Silence” on Friday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. Funded in part by the Sundance Institute, the movie follows the story of a small Pennsylvanian town confronting a firestorm of controversy ignited by a same-sex wedding announcement in the local newspaper. The documentary is described as illustrating the challenges of being an outsider in a rural community. It takes place in Oil City, Pa., less than two hours from Westfield.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion, including a prominent player in the film, Roxanne Hitchcock, proprietor of the Latonia Theater in Oil City. Also on the panel are Rev. Steve Aschmann of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Erie, Pa.; Deb Christina, lifelong resident and longtime business owner in Westfield; Beth Robson of the Watchfire Alliance; Marvin Henchberger, executive director of Western New York Gay and Lesbian Youth Services; Bob Reider of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays); and Father Gordon De La Vars of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
According to directors Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, a geneticist and author of “The God Gene,” “The aim of ‘Out in the Silence’ is to expand public awareness about the difficulties that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people face in rural and small town America and to promote dialogue and action that will help people on all sides of the issues find common ground.”
The film has won wide recognition for its respectful treatment of both sides of a controversial issue. It covers Joe Wilson’s dramatic journey as he is drawn back to his home town by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school. It is a story about the unique challenges of being different in a small town, and the potential for change when the environment for dialogue is created. A subplot is the economic necessity in modern day rural America for tolerating and even encouraging diversity in order to attract and keep talent.
According to Patterson Library Director Eli Guinnee, the film fits perfectly with the public library goal of promoting knowledge, understanding, and mutual respect.
“The film follows a story of firestorm and controversy, but at its heart is a message that when we take the time to get to know each other positive change can occur,” Guinnee said. “The organizers of this event have done a great job of assembling a distinguished panel and I think the panel will do a great job of carrying on the conversation started by this film.”
The free event is scheduled to run from 7 to 9 p.m. The film runs less than one hour and will be followed by a panel discussion. For more information, call Patterson Library at 326-2154.
More Details: http://observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/536050.html?nav=5053&actionAlert=emailcontent
Film Is Opportunity To Build Bridges
February 11, 2010
Editorial in the Observer-Reporter, serving southwestern Pennsylvania’s Washington and Greene counties, Feb. 8, 2010:
A documentary called “Out in the Silence” is scheduled to be shown Wednesday at Eva K. Bowlby Public Library in Waynesburg.
The film, produced by Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, addresses issues faced by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.
“Out in the Silence” follows the stories of a mother who takes a courageous stand for her gay teenage son, an evangelical pastor and his wife who befriend Wilson and re-examine their most deeply held beliefs, and local residents who must decide what their cherished, small-town values really mean.
The impetus behind Wilson’s documentary was the announcement of his same-sex marriage that ignited a firestorm of controversy in Oil City, a small Western Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago.
We agree with Wilson when he said what better place to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in small towns and rural areas than in the public library.
Initially, we believed the library should be congratulated for opening its doors to show what many unbdoubtely believe to be a controversial and perhaps uncomfortable subject matter.
But then we thought, “Why not?”
Libraries do not censor reading material, so why would there be any question of censoring film material, assuming the film is not pornographic and counter to established community standards, whatever those might be?
This is an opportunity for people across the spectrum in Greene County, including students, parents, teachers, clergy, health and social service providers, GLBT residents, civic leaders and all those concerned about the well-being of all in their community, to come together and engage in a constructive discussion.
This also is an opportunity to bring people together in a conversation about fairness, equality, and inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in small towns and rural communities in Pennsylvania and across the country.
Bowlby Library is doing its part by opening its door and providing a place for the documentary to be shown.
Now it’s up to the good citizens of Greene County to show an example to others by coming together to begin the process of building bridges rather than walls on issues that have divided communities.
Copyright Observer Publishing Co.
OUT IN THE SILENCE At The PUBLIC LIBRARY
February 02, 2010
QWAVES PRODUCTIONS
PRESS RELEASE
February 2, 2010
AWARD-WINNING NEW DOCUMENTARY
ABOUT THE LIVES OF GLBT PEOPLE IN A SMALL PENNSYLVANIA TOWN
TO SCREEN AT PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN BEAVER FALLS AND WAYNESBURG, PA
WASHINGTON, DC – February 2, 2010 - Community screenings of OUT IN THE SILENCE, “a stunning documentary” (Philadelphia Inquirer) produced in association with Penn State Public Broadcasting and the Sundance Institute, are scheduled for:
- Tuesday, February 9 at 5:30 PM at the Carnegie Free Library, 1301 Seventh Ave, Beaver Falls
- Wednesday, February 10 at 6:00 PM at the Eva K. Bowlby Public Library, 311 N. West, St, Waynesburg
The screenings will be followed by a Q & A session with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer aimed at engaging the audience in a conversation about fairness, equality, and inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people in small towns and rural communities in Pennsylvania and across the country.
Exploring topics ranging from religion, safe schools and economic development, to discrimination, tolerance and understanding, OUT IN THE SILENCE offers a compelling model for civic engagement and dialogue and is an ideal tool for bringing people of all ages together to begin the process of building bridges rather than walls on issues that have divided our communities for far too long.
After Wilson’s own same-sex marriage announcement ignites a firestorm of controversy in Oil City, the small western Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago, OUT IN THE SILENCE follows the stories of a mother who takes a courageous stand for her gay teenage son, an evangelical pastor and his wife who befriend Wilson and re-examine their most deeply held beliefs, and local residents who must decide what their cherished small town values really mean.
Wilson and Hamer are working with a variety of civil and human rights organizations, including the ACLU of PA, to take the film to small towns and rural communities across the country. The film has already been broadcast on all stations within the Pennsylvania Public Television Network and The Philadelphia Foundation has provided grant support to help conduct these community educational events, free-of-charge, across Pennsylvania.
“What better place to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in small towns and rural areas,” said Wilson, “than in the public libraries, those great institution where the community, in all its diversity, comes together and that represent our highest ideals as a society: knowledge, lifelong learning, freedom, and equal access for all?”
Wilson and Hamer are hoping that the events in Beaver Falls and Waynesburg attract people from across the spectrum ready and willing to engage in dialogue, including students, parents and educators, clergy, health and social service providers, civic leaders, and all those concerned about the well-being of all in their community.
Previous community and campus screenings of OUT IN THE SILENCE have been highly successful. For example, after a program at the University of Pittsburgh-Titusville, Professor Mary Ann Caton wrote: “Several of our students have been deeply touched by the film. I’ve learned that several who went into the auditorium that night went in with some hostility toward the gay community. But these students have begun to rethink their positions as a result of seeing the film and engaging in conversation with the filmmakers and others in the audience.”
At Marlboro College in Vermont, Student Affairs Coordinator Chris Lenois commented that: “OUT IN THE SILENCE demonstrates that polarizing issues are best handled when people are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints without lashing out or retreating into their own moral corner, which is probably the most valuable lesson any young person could learn.”
And a very encouraging event just took place at the First United Methodist Church in Lancaster, PA. Sponsored by nearly 20 religious congregations in the area, the screening was attended by more than 200 people and was followed by a rich and respectful dialogue. A clip of that conversation can be seen on the project’s Facebook page: http://Facebook.com/outinthesilence
A press kit and more information about OUT IN THE SILENCE and the ongoing community engagement campaign, as well as a short trailer for the film, are available on the Penn State Public Broadcasting website: http://wpsu.org/outinthesilence
The filmmakers are available for interviews.
Contact: Joe Wilson
Campaign Director
OUT IN THE SILENCE
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
O: 202-588-5785
C: 202-320-4172
###
PRIDE Film Festival Highlights Rural LGBTQ Life
January 26, 2010
NPR story on OUT IN THE SILENCE at the Bloomington, Indiana PRIDE Film Festival. This year the theme is “Steer Queer”, focusing on rural and small town LGBTQ life.
More Details: http://indianapublicmedia.org/arts/silence-celebration-bloomingtons-pride-film-festival/
“That’s So Gay”: Anti-Bullying Legislation and LGBT Teens
January 08, 2010
The ACLU of Pennsylvania, a vital partner in efforts to reach and engage people in small towns and rural communities, highlights its work with OUT IN THE SILENCE on its Speaking Freely blog in a post about important legislative work now on the agenda in the state.
More Details: http://aclupa.blogspot.com/2010/01/thats-so-gay-anti-bullying-legislation.html
Out in the Silence wins Audience Award in Long Island
January 05, 2010
OUT IN THE SILENCE won the Audience Award for best documentary at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which ran November 12-19, 2009. The screening was followed by a panel discussion that included teen representatives from Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth.
More Details: http://www.liglff.org/nov1409.html#silence
Community Engagement Campaign Receives Major Grant Support
December 12, 2009
The David Haas Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation has awarded a major grant to the OUT IN THE SILENCE Community Engagement Campaign, aimed at conducting events in small towns and rural communities in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to help raise LGBT visibility and promote constructive dialogue in the quest for fairness & equality for all. The Haas Fund support enables the OITS Campaign to offer screening events to qualifying communities in Pennsylvania at No-Cost.
The OUT IN THE SILENCE team is also working with strategic communications firm Active Voice to develop the national community engagement campaign, modeled on the Pennsylvania pilot, for 2010.
For more information, or to request a screening,
contact Joe Wilson: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
“Activists make case for basic human rights”
November 17, 2009
Article in the Herald following Penn State Shenango screening
More Details: http://sharon-herald.com/archivesearch/local_story_318200219.html?start:int=0
Out in the Silence wins Audience Award for Best Documentary
November 17, 2009
OUT IN THE SILENCE was awarded the audience award for best documentary at the Rehoboth Beach Film Festival.
Radio Interview with Kim Young on All Things Erie - WQLN
October 19, 2009
More Details: http://wqlnv2.wqln.org/main/radio/weekend%20All%20things%20erie/podcast/media/wate0910171.mp3
“Sorely Needed and Highly Effective”
October 15, 2009
Preview of OUT IN THE SILENCE by veteran critic Floyd Lawrence for the Erie Times-News.
More Details: http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091015/ENTERTAINMENT0702/310159965/-1/ENTERTAINMENT07
Send A Postcard To The President and Your Senators / Representatives
October 10, 2009
For those of us who can’t, or choose not to, go to Washington, DC for the National Equality March on October 11, it is still important to join together in calls for action in the quest for fairness, equality and human rights for all.
While much of our energy is focused on the hard and necessary day-to-day work still to be done in our communities and in our states, a message to the President, and our senators and representatives, from out here where we are could be an important boost.
So, the idea is simple:
Get a postcard representing your community and send something along the lines of the following message to:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
And your federal senators and representatives.
Dear Mr. President / Senator / Representative,
I live in [name of town, county, state].
Because of the threats of harassment, violence, and discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and allies, I am often forced to live in silence, and fear, in my own community.
I’m writing to ask you to confirm your commitment to fairness, equality and human rights for all people, be a fierce advocate for change, and to: pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, expand Hate Crimes legislation, end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act now.
It is time to speak Out In The Silence!
[signed]
OutintheSilence.com
Postcard front
Postcard back
More Details: http://www.facebook.com/OutintheSilence
“The Fight For GLBT Rights In Rural America Is Far From Over.”
September 20, 2009
Review of OUT IN THE SILENCE in a special issue of national news magazine IN THESE TIMES focused on “Taking Back Rural America”
More Details: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4905/gay_boys_in_oil_city
Out in the Silence wins Audience Award and Alternative Spirit Award
August 13, 2009
OUT IN THE SILENCE won the Audience Award at the Hardacre Film and Cinema Festival in the small town of Tipton, Iowa, and an Alternative Spirit Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette feature article - documentary examines homophobia in rural America
July 23, 2009
More Details: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09204/985816-60.stm
“Heart-Wrenching” - Philadelphia Weekly
July 14, 2009
More Details: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/screen/Queer-and-Now.html
“Stunning” - Philadelphia Inquirer
July 10, 2009
More Details: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/weekend/20090710_GET_THE_PICTURE.html
“A Poignant, Personal and Engrossing Story” - Philadelphia City Paper
July 10, 2009
More Details: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2009/07/09/qfest-movie-shorts-n-z
Out in the Silence on GritTV “Got Docs”
May 29, 2009
Out in the Silence was featured on GritTV’s Got Docs with the claim that “the early buzz [for the film] is overwhelmingly positive.”
More Details: http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2009/05/29/got-docs-out-in-the-silence/
Out in the Silence Featured in Philadelphia Gay News
February 06, 2009
Out in the Silence was featured in the Philadelphia Gay News article “Filmmakers Roll Tape on Small-town Documentary.”
More Details: http://epgn.com/bookmark/1897815/article
- With Major Support From:
- Presented by Penn State Public Broadcasting.