I rented 'Latter Days' this week, yet another gay movie that shows the church in all it's hypocritical glory, and at the same time makes you believe in God, or at least, makes you WANT to believe.
Aaron (Steve Sandvoss); a young, hunky and virginal Mormon missionary meets Christian (Wesley A. Ramsey); a gay, anything but virginal, LA party boy. Their passionate romance leads to Aaron's excommunication, and to Christian's "dark night of the soul". When the affair (actually just a kiss) is discovered, Aaron heads back home to Pocatello, Idaho, and a grim welcome from his Mormon family. After being told that the loving God he truly believes in will never forgive him for being what he is, he attempts suicide via a razor blade, and failing that, is sent to a church approved psycho ward that, among other things, practices electro-shock aversion therapy/torture on his nuts!
This part of the movie is true to life - many gay men have been literally tortured by loving family, hoping to save them from a fate worse than torture - hell. The fear of hell is one of Satan's greatest weapons, and though karmic law/justice/logic demands it exists, I also think that hell is a place being built right here on earth, and men, not demons, are its gatekeepers. As a Christian Universalist, I accept the doctrine of Apokatastasis (the "restoration of all things"), and that loving mercy really does trump justice. Hell 'eternal' is a myth.
Back to the plot: thanks to a remarkable serendipity that writer/director C. Jay Cox makes abundantly clear could only have happened at the direction of a "higher power", Aaron and Christian (Jew and Gentile?) are reunited, and a tragedy is miraculously turned into a happy ending. The movie also features Jacqueline Bisset in a wonderful role, and like, how cool is that?
Why are fags able to write better Christian movies than Christians?
NOTES:
Tentmaker is a Christian Universalist site that gives a good overview of the whole idea. The site is named after Paul, the world's greatest missionary who never married, preferred the company of men, and openly thanked GOD that he had NO desire for women... *innocent shrug*. The reason it's called "Tentmaker" is because Paul literally made tents to support himself when between preaching gigs, and yea, the doctrine of universal forgiveness is like a "tent" that covers everyone, duh. It totally cracks me up that hard-ons are said to "tent" our pants - they're also "tentmakers".
1 comment:
Thanx "fur" dire-erecting my achtung to this LDSer-falls-for-City-of-Lost-Angels-hedonic-engineeer homo love story, although it's a year old. Fittingly enough, as you now "Gno" (a G-d wink?) my S.O. is an ex-Mormon himself turned Lakota convert; something about the indigenous American peoples still resonated deeply enough within him from what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints preached about 'em that it still took firm root within his spirituality. You already "Gno" what mine is. It works well together, though.
Last skewed gay romance I saw, a comedy of errors, was 2004's "Touch of Pink". Far less tragic (no electro-convulsive aversion "therapy" rendered out of fear for anyone's consignment to perdition anywhere therein) it, too, follows an apparently mismatched blossoming male couple. There's Alim, a much-closetted Muslim from an East Indian family & his b.f., a more than "out" white Toronto designer. Funny thing is Alim's mentor is the ghost of Cary Grant (NOTE: I'd like to know why not Rock Hudson, for gripe's sake?), whose character is played w/ seriously tongue-in-cheek abandon by David Lynch mainstay, Kyle MacLachlan, whose roll as the ceaselessly inquisitive detective, Agent Dale Cooper, in the aforementioed director's "Twin Peaks" TV series won him a cult following. And don't forget he was the first Paul Atredes in the Lynchification of Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel, "Dune".
The film you've cited here, "Latter Days", however, sounds like I'll havta give it a gander. Strangely enough this "religion" founded as it was by a charlatan on hoaxes, e.g. the gold tablets allegedly bequeathed to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni which could only be translated by the application of certain gem stones but which were never actually ever profured, continues to wield such political clout here in the Colonies & abroad.
While on the topic OF abroad, didja hear that the reason the LDS missionaries have the least amount of success in gaining Chinese converts is because "Mor Mon" translates into "Gates of Hell" in their language? Food for thought, speaking of Hell on Earth.
I loathe to recount the fallout from such a false doctrine. I oughta have Sequoia himself list a few items for you himself from his own personal experience. But, no, most people regard our androphiliac ilk as an incumberance to society still, let alone one w/ nary a substantial spirituality whatsoever, the Catholic gay support group Dignity notwithstanding. Hence, the vast schism caused in the Anglican Communion over gay rights.
Instead, androphilia in screendom takes on the guise first lain by the groundwork of Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles", taking Lestat de Lioncourt & his thrall, Louis (pronounced Louie) to the next logical conclusion, a harem of homo blood-imbibers. And now, we have such TV fare as "The Lair" & its antecedant, "Dante's Cove". Both feature a proliferation of profligate male Hollywood hot bods who are damned in their own way besides their homosexuality; they're vampires, warlocks, and werewolves.
Redemption anywhere anymore, someone? Anywho, Mike, I like your Christian universalist espousal of that tricky Greek word meaning the renewal of all things. I'm definitely down w/ that, bro. Heck, my own father had been my Sunday school teacher in the first & second grades @ Christ Church Episcopal. Then, right after Confirmation, I found the gay darling of Witchcraft (NOT Wicca, mind you!) Paul Huson's fraternal twin tomes, "Mastering Herbalism" & "Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide For Witches, Warlocks, and Covens" and my praxis & outlook in religion took a decidedly different turn altogether.
Funny Saul Of Tarsus ref. to tents & "tenting" you cite. LOL! There's a modernday Gnostic Church, though, the Johannites, who render the visitation of Pisthis Sophia Herself upon the individual just as valuable as acceptance of the Gospel & hence the need for a priesthood of any institutionalized form as foregoable. As always, Mikey, nice work ( :-)}
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