Covering Media

Director Reed Cowan interviewing Mormon Utah State Senator Buttars.

Opened: 06/18/2010 Limited

Trailer: Click here to view at Apple Trailers

Genre: Documentary

Rated: Unrated

Short Synopsis

8: The Mormon Proposition exposes the Mormon Church's historic involvement in the promotion and passage of California's Proposition 8 and the religion's secretive, decades-long campaign against gay rights. The film takes place in California and Utah as Mormons, following their prophet's call to action, wage spiritual warfare with money and misinformation against gay citizens, doing everything they can to deny them of marriage and the rights that come with it. 8: The Mormon Proposition opens in theaters on June 18th, 2010, two years after the first gay marriages took place in California (June 17th, 2008).

Long Synopsis

Director Reed Cowan initially planned on making a documentary about gay teen homelessness and suicide in Utah but soon realized that the homophobia that prompts otherwise loving parents to kick teenagers out of their homes is deep-seated in current Mormon ideology. Cowan, with his fellow filmmakers, experienced first-hand what it was like to grow up gay in Utah in the Mormon faith, then turned their attention to the historic campaign by the Mormon Church to pass Proposition 8 in California believing that it was the cornerstone of an ideology that has worked for decades "to damage gay people and their causes." The film is their emotional outcry to what they found.

In 2010, thousands of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender (LGBT) citizens are denied almost 200 civil rights their straight, married counterparts enjoy through civil marriage. Some states have signaled progress.

But amid the progress, political experts say the Mormon Church, using front groups, has been coordinating, financing and leading the effort to stop the advancement of marriage equality for more than three decades. Not until the California Fair Political Practices Commission launched an investigation into the Mormon's involvement in Proposition 8, did the secrets of the Mormon effort become a matter of record.

As California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 languished in the polls, Mormon Prophet Thomas S. Monson issued a call from Salt Lake City to millions of Mormons all over the world. His was an order to action containing the secret code language of the highly secret Mormon temple ceremony. The action alert commanded Mormons both inside and outside of California to do all things necessary to insure the passage of California's Proposition 8.

Within days, hundreds of thousands of Mormons all over the United States funneled thirty million Mormon dollars in to California to ensure the passage of California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8.

During the fight, the Mormon Church media-engine, which includes public relations and political consulting firm support, barraged Californians with what critics call a suffocating number of misleading television and radio ads as well as door-to-door campaigns manned by what many consider to be a Mormon front group: THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE.

When Prop. 8 passed in California by a slim margin, Mormons were quick to take credit for the success. Mormon leaders bragged that the fight against gay marriage in California began to flourish only after the Mormon Church got involved. However, when backlash from the LGBT community targeted Mormon temples throughout the United States, and attention was called to the amount of tax exempt funding they procured and their questionable accounting methods, the Mormon Church was the first to complain that they were the ones being persecuted.

In the wake of it all, Cowan was collecting secret recordings, secret documents and never before seen footage exposing Mormon efforts to deny rights for LGBT citizens all over the world.

8: The Mormon Proposition brings the fight to a personal level by introducing us to Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones, a gay couple who got married in San Francisco after the California Supreme Court on May 15, 2008 ruled that the previously existing statutory ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Ironically, Tyler Barrick is the direct descendent of Frederick Granger Williams, the right hand man to Mormon Church founder, Joseph Smith.

The Barrick-Jones family history tells tales of Mormon ancestors chased from state to state because of their own practice of polygamy. Decades later, the Barrick-Jones family is experiencing cultural and governmental discrimination of the same kind that haunted their ancestors. Only now, it is their own religion and its lobbying efforts that are persecuting them.

8: The Mormon Proposition exposes decade's-long campaigns against LGBT rights, not only working behind the scenes to unseat political leaders who advocate for marriage equality, but also alleged abuse against their own people through electric shock therapy and frontal lobotomies for known homosexual Mormon men. The film also chronicles numerous gay-Mormon suicides, including the story of Stuart Matis, who shot himself on the steps of a California Mormon Church during the California's Knight Initiative against gay marriage.

In an interview with Cowan, Utah State Senator Chris Buttars' characterization of gays engaged in socalled "pig sex," brought on an Human Rights Campaign (HRC) action alert, a scolding from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and the eventual ouster from his position as chair of Utah's Senate Judiciary Committee.

8: The Mormon Proposition questions the Mormon Church's ability to use its tax-free status to finance political campaigns. Through never-before seen documents, recordings and insider-interviews, Cowan who was raised Mormon in Utah and was a door-to-door evangelist for the Mormon Church, exposes the efforts of the Mormon Church and its members to halt nearly every piece of LGBT legislation on the desks of lawmakers from Hawaii to New York. 8: The Mormon Proposition is a call to action not only to LGBT community, but also to citizens everywhere to stand up for civil rights, and to pay attention to the origins of campaign financing.

At this time, same-sex marriage is legal and currently performed in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C. In New York, Rhode Island and Maryland, same-sex marriages are recognized but not performed.