This Sundance-award winning film from 1995, titled "Ballot Measure 9," is an important and must-see account of the dangers of right wing, dehumanizing, anti-GLBT rhetoric in any age.
It may be about Oregon back in 1992, but it feels an awful lot like Pennsylvania today.
It's definitely worthy of being put on your NetFlix queue!
Here's a review of the film by Janet Maslin for the New York Times in 1995:
In her no-frills documentary about the bitter fight over Oregon's 1992 anti-gay ballot initiative, Heather MacDonald examines the many faces of prejudice. There is the schoolboy who declares, "Never liked them, never will," although he says he doesn't know any homosexuals. There is the woman who frets that "they could persuade one of my grandchildren to become a homosexual." There is the authoritative-sounding man interviewed on television who says it is a fact that 28 percent of homosexuals have performed sodomy with more than 1,000 partners. There is the grandmotherly lady who shakes her head and says, "It's just not human for people to act that way."
And there are the political organizers dedicated to capitalizing on such sentiments as fiercely as they can. "Ballot Measure 9" witnesses the escalating battle between gay rights advocates, who were clearly caught off guard by the vehemence of their enemies, and the extremely well-organized forces of the religious right. Lon Mabon, the chairman of the Oregon Citizens Alliance and a leader of the movement to prevent and revoke laws banning anti-gay discrimination, speaks with typical single-mindedness in describing the fight as "a simple battle between good and evil."
Since Ms. MacDonald makes no pretense of even-handedness, she readily shows Mr. Mabon in a disparaging light. But the scenes in which he voices his opinions in small, half-empty rooms are dangerously misleading because the Citizens Alliance efforts proved so effective. "Ballot Measure 9" is best watched as a cautionary study of why this group was able to find such strength in numbers, and what to expect from similar local ballot referendums that have since cropped up other states. It also sees beyond the statistics and finds vivid, sometimes disturbing human dimensions on both sides of this struggle.
"Ballot Measure 9," which opens today at the Film Forum, exposes not only rhetoric but also the more vicious aspects of its subject matter. The fight began at the level of semantics, with the alliance defining gay rights as "special rights" and exploiting the sense of privilege that implied. On the "No on 9" side, there were bumper stickers reading "Civil Rights Are Special."
Opponents of Ballot Measure 9 were quick to identify a larger threat to individual freedoms within the alliance's campaigning, and their cause galvanized representatives of many different minority groups. Ms. MacDonald notes that the Ku Klux Klan was instrumental in passing an anti-Catholic school statute in the 1920's in Oregon (it was quickly overturned), and that conflicts like the present one are not unknown there. One by-product of the Ballot Measure 9 fight, according to Portland's chief of police and other speakers, has been a sharp increase in anti-gay violence in the state.
Using straightforward video camerawork that still captures the expansive beauty of the state, Ms. MacDonald documents some of these violent acts. Her film describes arson, petty acts of sabotage and even attacks on trees and animals as part of the pre-election activity in 1992. She also films ugly graffiti in a Roman Catholic church and plays back the voices of obscene phone callers. And she presents Mr. Mabon's opinion on this subject: "I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the hate crimes -- in fact, I know a lot of the hate crimes -- are perpetrated by the homosexual community as a media tool."
One of the lasting messages of "Ballot Measure 9," which won the audience award for best documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is that the effectiveness of media tools should never be underestimated. The Citizens Alliance's lurid descriptions of homosexuals, from talk of coprophilia to flaming Mardi Gras-type parade scenes, had a strong impact. Ballot Measure 9 lost by a 57 percent-43 percent margin, but many of the "No on 9" voters were over 60; the initiative had stronger support from voters in their 30's and 40's. Similar measures have passed the electoral test not only in Colorado and Cincinnati but in many Oregon communities since the 1992 election.
"Ballot Measure 9" shines a searchlight on these events and takes a sharp, galvanizing look at what they mean.
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