8: the Mormon proposition

Reed Cowan, like many Mormons, had been a missionary. His documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition shows a similar zeal in its effort to charge the Mormon church with providing funds and organisation for a California state initiative to ban gay marriage. Disappointingly, Cowan's propaganda contains counter-productive bias, sentiment and self-defeating lack of perspective.

The writer-director's attack on the tax-exempt Utah-based church's US$22 million involvement in politics depends largely on one set of leaked Mormon documents obtained by a researcher, to prove that the church deliberately camouflaged its key role in the anti-gay campaign. The human repercussions of the fight to de-legitimise the California court's acceptance of same-sex marriage are largely illustrated through the words and actions of a photogenic, tearful couple of outcast gay Mormons.

One of them has a family tree sown by a Mormon pioneer, and his parents, very unusually, also abandoned the church in order to support their son (and gay daughter, whose story isn't included). The mother is a delightful real-life spitten image of the features and forthright goodness of the fictional Queer as Folk U.S. mum played so sympathetically by Sharon Gless.

The young couple are followed throughout the story, from their wedding day (on the first day of new and short-lived legality) and through the campaign. Their desire for exactly the same legal and civil rights as a heterosexual couple is expressed but not adequately justified.

Neither does Cowan give enough discredit to other churches and campaign backers: his whole beef is with the Mormon's underhanded spitefulness. That may be true, but doubters will not be convinced by a story that gives no details about the pro-gay organisations and individuals backing the counter campaign. What were they doing to beat the Mormon assault?

Where were the liberal voices in California? Why hadn't they realised that the Mormons' earlier successful anti-gay-marriage fight in Hawaii could be replicated? Where were all the gay community's supposed allies in Hollywood? If there wasn't an organised response, a why-not documentary is also worth making?

Too many questions aren't asked. Where did Romney, Huntsman and other mainstream Mormon politicians stand on the issue? What role did California's non-Mormon politicians and religious leaders play? Was the Catholic church knowingly duped by the Mormons? Why did San Francisco allow itself to be dominated by Utah?

There's even a positive angle that Cowan ignores. After all that multi-million-dollar TV advertising, misinformation and emotional blackmail, why did Prop 8 only gain 52% of the vote? Which constituencies do gay-marriage advocates have to woo better next time? Because a base of 48% is a very strong starting point for a counter-proposition. I hope Cowan's working on the topic, and paying less attention to his former religion.