For the Bible Tells Me So

Director: Daniel Karslake
Screenwriters: Daniel Karslake, Nancy Kennedy

Institute History

  • 2007 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Are homosexuals welcome in the kingdom of God? For centuries, the Bible has been used to sanction discrimination, repression, and injustice. It has justified slavery, empowered segregation, and excused the subjugation of women—and the tradition continues. Same tactics, new target. Today a handful of religious passages are constantly exploited to validate hatred and violence against homosexuals.

Filmmaker Daniel Karslake explores the way religious conservatives have systematically misled the public into believing that the Bible forbids homosexuality and how this campaign of misinterpretation continues to stigmatize the gay community and threaten America's rapidly diminishing separation of church and state.

With a keen sense of irony, Karslake focuses on the family. Through the unfolding of five very moving stories of Christian families with a gay or lesbian member and the reflections of major biblical scholars, the film examines what, if anything, the Bible actually says about homosexuality as we know it today. Skillfully constructed, painstakingly researched, wielding whimsical animation and a proudly unapologetic point of view, For the Bible Tells Me So explores the intersection of religion and homosexuality in America today, concluding that, perhaps, hatred is the greatest abomination of all.

— David Courier

Screening Details

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