You’d be hard-pressed to name a recent documentary that has provoked more of an emotional response than Bridegroom. The heartbreaking 2013 film chronicled the romance between young lovers Shane Bitney Crone and fiance Tom Bridegroom that ended in unexpected tragedy when Bridegroom fell to his death from the top of a building and deepened still when Bridegroom’s disapproving family banished Crone from the funeral. It’s such an undeniably moving film that watching it reportedly caused former President Bill Clinton to speak out in support of marriage equality. Alas, there are still people in the U.S. who misinterpret the Bible and consider LGBT people to be sinners.
Some of them live near University of Texas at Tyler, where the film was shown March 23 and Crone attended to participate in a Q&A following the screening. In a note posted to his Facebook page, Crone wrote about the surprise that faced him.
Last night I attended a screening of Bridegroom at University of Texas at Tyler. While the film was playing, a prayer circle formed in the lobby. I watched as the small group congregated, quietly praying for the “Heavenly Father” to “help everyone inside that theatre to see the truth.” Apparently a local Catholic group on Facebook had put out a call to action, urging “prayer warriors” to get down to the screening of the “controversial” film.
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When the film finished, I invited the prayer group to join us for the Q&A. They seemed shocked by my hospitality and a few even approached me afterwards to apologize for the fact that I had been discriminated against by other Christians. I appreciated their sympathy, however their sentiments came with a caveat: “But you have a choice to act on your impulses to sin.”
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I explained that while it’s important to respect other people’s views, I disagreed with the heart of their statement. “If all sins are equal, then it’s hard for me to comprehend why an entire group of you would have an emergency prayer session outside of the screening of a film that tells a love story about two men. If you are willing to go to such great lengths to stop everything you’re doing to try and ‘save’ everyone who came to the screening, shouldn’t you be having these same kind of prayer circles around divorce attorneys’ offices to ‘save’ people from acting on the sin of divorce?”
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I can’t understand why people go to such great lengths to shout from the rooftops that “Homosexuality is a sin and must be stopped!” when every single one of us is a “sinner” to some degree.
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I am shocked by the amount of time, energy, and money people spend trying to deny LGBT people equal rights. Imagine if that same time, energy, and money were spent combatting world hunger or curing cancer; the world would be a healthier, happier place, I am sure.
Watch the trailer for Bridegroom below and join us in saying a prayer for the misguided Catholics.
DarkZephyr
His response to them was excellent. To be precise however, Catholicism actually does teach degrees of sin. Mortal and Venial, for instance. Mortal sins being those sins that will land you butt in Hell if you do not repent of them and Venial sins that won’t necessarily get you damned but they still require some form of penance, either in this life or the next(Purgatory). That being said however, I would say divorce (provided that its coupled with remarriage) is just as much a mortal sin within the Catholic Church if not more so than same sex acts would be so the heart of his point remains firm. He is pointing out that there is a genuine prejudice here against LGBT people that is evidenced by the disproportionate amount of time and energy that Christians of every stripe spend on protesting or trying to stop or punish anything related to LGBT issues or themes than they do ANYTHING else that they consider a sin with the possible exception of abortion, but to be honest I think LGBT gets even more attention from Christians in general than abortion does these days.
Realitycheck
Religious people are brain washed to think in certain ways, it is almost
impossible to change that, some time people grow over time or start
questioning or the meet people in their lives that will slowly open their
mind to a wider view of the world.
But it is a slow process, fortunately every generation is better then the one before………. One day all religions will belong in history books as a strange
part of primitive humans lives…….
Paco
@DarkZephyr: They cherry pick the sins that supports their own personal bias to use as weapons against others. They condemn the sins of others while embracing or ignoring their own.
Saint Law
Jesus said that it was a sin to covet your neighbor’s wife i.e. that the evil is in the orientation to do evil.
So all Christians who maintain that homosexuality is not a sin unless you act out are contradicting their savior.
However, were they to adhere to His definition of sin, most God-bothered gays would realise much sooner how insanely unreasonable are the demands of their creed and reject it, as it deserves to be, for the utter shite that it is.
Alan down in Florida
Desire (Homosexual or Heterosexual) is by definition lust and lusting, even if only in the heart and not in actuality, is by nature a sin. And basically all sins are forgivable if forgiveness is honestly asked for by the sinner.
Saint Law
@Alan down in Florida: Dat wot you tell yourself after every jerk off session?
God isn’t listening, deary. He doesn’t exist.
Saint Law
@Alan down in Florida: And if He did He’s got better things to do than fret about where you put your little penis.
DarkZephyr
@Paco: I agree, they definitely do this with GREAT frequency.
Giancarlo85
If someone is gay, who am I too judge?
Well that is paraphrasing, but somebody should tell that little group of fanatics their Pope doesn’t approve of them judging gay people.
I would know as I come from a Catholic background. I am more agnostic though.
These fanatics clearly don’t respect what the Pope has said. Stop judging other people with your demented views.
Adrian Michael Ornelas
As if they haven’t suffered enough!
AtticusBennett
WOW.
i’ve seen the film. it documents, in brutally painful clarity, exactly how people like this Catholic Prayer Group were responsible for so much pain and actually, literally, ripping a family apart.
And yet, they just don’t f***ing get it.
these fools are going to end up burying their own children.
John Nilon
They should be forced to watch the movie. It’s heartbreaking
Garold Bulmerr
hot men like them gets 3 to 8 a day rew with honey
Billy Budd
When I watched a screening of “There Will Be Blood” at a cinema in Boston, just when the preacher was going to repeat that “I’m a false prophet, God is a superstition”, a loud noise came from the upper part of the screening room (where the projecting machines are located). It was impossible to hear the movie’s dialogue from then on. When we complained, the manager said that there was nothing she could do to help. I HATE religious people.
Giancarlo85
@Billy Budd: That is so disrespectful. Of course I would have gone out and told them to shut up myself.
Realitycheck
@Garold Bulmerr:
what doe that mean? And what is Rew?
Merv
“Alas, there are still people in the U.S. who misinterpret the Bible and consider LGBT people to be sinners.”
Who says they’re misinterpreting it? The Bible unambiguously cones slavery and genocide, so it’s not really much of a leap for it to condone persecution and even execution of gay people.
Xzamilio
Remember, kids… sin only matters when you’re gay.
http://shallowvoices.blogspot.com/2014/01/sin-only-matters-when-youre-gay.html
By the way, EVERYONE misinterprets the bible, if you’re going to make the claim of of misinterpreting scripture. Everyone cherry picks, ignores the passages they don’t like, and then form a god of their own individual choosing. It’s why there are thousands of denominations of Christianity that don’t follow the same interpretation of the bible or believe in the same kind of Christian god… which is actually the Jewish god… that Muslims also follow.
Why have such iron age nonsense when at this point, we know it has human origins and not a hint of divinity?
Xzamilio
@Giancarlo85: I don’t respect what he said either, especially considering 1, He hasn’t been that welcoming of gay people, and 2) “Who am I to judge?” isn’t that great a sentiment… it’s just being dismissive. I haven’t heard this guy come out and say he’s welcoming LGBT people… he gets far too much credit for doing virtually nothing for LGBT Catholics.
DarkZephyr
@Xzamilio: I read your piece, Xzamilio and it was powerful. I can very much identify with you as I am the son of a pentecostal minister. You stated in a much clearer way what I was trying to say toward the end of my initial post above. Very good job. I hope you don’t mind but I am linking it to one of my facebook groups. 🙂
jwtraveler
All the “prayer warriors” in this country will love us to death, literally.
Giancarlo85
@Xzamilio: Right, but coming from an institution that is stuck a century behind the times, it is a lot more than expected. He wasn’t being dismissive of that thought. And he is basically telling these hateful Christians to stop judging.
I am not catholic per say… I am agnostic, but coming from a 99% catholic country this is more than what I expected from the Pope.
But I need to distinctly remind people several major Catholic countries in the world have gay marriage fully legalized. The US does not. Argentina, Brazil and Spain do. And these are just three examples. So lets not paint every Catholic the same. Many of these Catholic countries have 60-70% support of same sex marriage.
transiteer
Ignorance is ignorance, but the Catholics are one of the very few (all Abrahamic religions) that excel at it. That and hate/violence.
Christianity (& a lot of Islam that plagiarized it) is fake – a Roman public works project intended to pacify those rebellious jews. So, sorry – no god, no jesus, it’s all fiction. So bare hatreds without an excuse now, is religion. Just ignorant people who want to tell others what to do (in everything) by inventing a religion based on bronze age fairy stories. The ‘circle’ are just pathetic dupes.
ted72
I’m glad I donated to the production of this film. Religion is toxic to human advancement.
Xzamilio
@DarkZephyr: By all means, please do. I think a lot of us grow up with this religious hypocrisy surrounding us and while some of us embrace it and forge our own path, those like me dismiss it altogether after taking the due diligence and studying/researching its tenets and origins.
@Giancarlo85: I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know what you mean by “agnostic” because as an atheist, I am also agnostic — although Ignosticism is my ultimate conclusion (in other words, I don’t bother with claims of a god unless the other person can logically and coherently define what god it is they claim exists). But you do demonstrate one thing I have been championing for the longest — often times, you see that our morality as human beings always seems to transcend that of archaic religious practices, and often times it is religions having to catch up to societal morality.
And I wouldn’t stuck a century behind… they’re a good two back.
Jimmy Hufferd
Maybe there should be an emergency drag show during their mass.
Caoimhin Mikael Lycke
Yes!!!
DarkZephyr
@Xzamilio: Thanks! Like Giancarlo, I identify as agnostic and though I am the son of a Protestant minister, I spent a good many years as a Roman Catholic by my own choice, but Christian attitude towards gay people ultimately cured me of that in the end. I concluded that Christian teaching itself concerning homosexuality is very dangerous and can be quite deadly. I am not an Agnostic athiest, but I am not an agnostic theist either. All I can say is that I don’t know what to believe. Is there a god? I don’t know. That about sums it up for me. lol I just know that I believe that a LOT of harm is done in the name of religion.
Xzamilio
@DarkZephyr: The questions of whether there is a god and whether you believe a god exists are two different things, which is why most atheist are agnostic. We can admit that we don’t whether or not a god exists, but that we lack belief that one does. So you can not know whether there is some kind of “higher power” out there while still rejecting belief that one does… it’s why as I’ve gotten older, I don’t waste time even pondering things like that because they have no evidence and people don’t always mean the same thing when they say “god”.. in fact they never mean the same thing.
jwtraveler
@Jimmy Hufferd: Good idea. Personally I’d prefer a contingent of “gay kiss warriors”.
Giancarlo85
@Xzamilio: In countries like mine, we are more culturally Catholic than religiously Catholic. That’s a strange statement to make on my part, but it’s what I notice. Spain and Argentina are this way. Less than 20% in those countries are practicing Catholics, though they identify as Catholic (just in name if anything).
scotshot
@Merv: “The bible unambiguously cones {sic} slavery and genocide, so it’s not much of a leap for it to condone persecution and even execution of gay people. Wow Merv. Fuck off
NJjoe
“Bridegroom” is one of the most wonderful and touching films I’ve seen in a longtime. A brilliant story of love.
Oh, and those Catholics in their circle of prayer? The Bible was written by men, men with flaws. I grew up Catholic and I proudly proclaimed (years ago) as an ex-Catholic. If you choose to believe in a book full of myths, that’s your choice. I believe in God, prayer and I hope he or she exists, however, I don’t need a church to do so. Organized religion, in my opinion, is the sinners calling card.
Merv
@scotshot: Why? Do you deny that the Bible condones slavery and genocide? I can provide chapter and verse if you want.
Shane Bitney Crone
Thank you for sharing this. 🙂
Celene Cole
This is one of my favorite documentaries ever. I haven’t watched it in awhile because I cry my eyes out from the very beginning. Tap Tap Tap
Marc Begeal
I remember when he put out the video… I cannot imagine the heart ache. The world knows you now, and we are here for you.
Dale Landefeld
Someday we will wake up……and many will be embarrassed about NOT growing, educated themselves….have LITTLE hope for them….
Tom Scott
I appreciate your right to religious freedom, but what happened he re is totally unnecessary. Shane
.. The movie was beautifully done. My heart was breaking watching it.
Mike Gerard
also, shouldn’t they focus on other issues like medical treatment to be equal for all, to save lives. Funny how they condemn abortion but then fall short on protesting to save lives of people because of financial class in this country