Tonight, PBS stations around the country will begin airing Out in America, a moving documentary by award winning filmmaker Andrew Goldberg. As they say in public television, check your local listings. Please. Then tell your friends and family to do the same. This is one film you will not want to miss.
Out in America is an uplifting, funny and highly respectful look at what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in America today. Above all, however, the film is a beautiful celebration of love and shared humanity. Featuring interviews with an extremely diverse group of couples and individuals interspersed with just the right amount of historical and political events, Out in America portrays LGBT Americans in one of the most real and honest ways I have ever seen on film.
While everyone in the film was fascinating, cutting across age, race, gender identity and religion, there was, however, one couple that truly captured my heart. They called themselves the Harolds, an elderly gay couple living together in Washington D.C. and partners for longer than most couples could ever imagine, gay or straight.
Throughout the film, the two Harolds adorably discuss their more than 40-year relationship together filled with shared passions, including their mutual love of candies and desserts. While I am sure they have faced challenges as a biracial gay couple, Out in America doesn't take us there, but instead focuses on the joy between these two loving adults. Whatever they did face, however, I left feeling certain that their love helped them overcome these formidable obstacles and that nothing life ever threw at them could shake that love.
I watched with mixed emotions whenever the Harolds were on screen because I know the power of that kind of love. It was thrilling to see a couple with such history, love and humor, but also made me wonder what life would have been like if my partner, Rand, had not been taken from me far too soon. It was hard to tell if the tears welling in my eyes throughout the film were those of joy or sadness but I welcomed them as a pleasant reminder of the man who taught me what true love was all about.
Like the Harolds, Rand and I shared many of the same passions throughout our time together just as intimately as we faced the obstacles that were thrown our way. Together, we faced the battle with pancreatic cancer that ultimately took Rand's life, but there was never any question of hiding who we were, and through it all, our love remained strong, and is still with me to this day. I wish he could have seen this film, he would have been proud of the people who made it and even more proud of the LGBT Americans who told their stories in such an accessible way.
Out in America is a film that everyone, no matter who they love, should see. It is a film that should be shown everywhere across the country from schools to senior centers and every politician's office in between as it will warm hearts and remind people that everyone deserves the chance to love.
Terrence Meck is the Executive Director of The Palette Fund. Full disclaimer: The Palette Fund is proud to have provided funding for outreach so that audiences nationwide can view this important film. For more information go to www.thepalettefund.org
Thank you for your story! My partner and I recently celebrated our 12th anniversary and are in our thirteenth year together. To think that you and your partner have been together twice as long as my partner and me is both a source of pride (for the lions in our community like you two) and confirmation that love is love (Gay or straight).
I will work until my last breath to advocate for marriage equality on behalf of my LGBT sisters and brothers. We cannot – must not – yield to the bigotry of christianists who have enshrined discrimination in the letter, but not the spirit, of the law of our Land.
I just watched a clip featuring an exposé of christianist George Rekers and his “therapeutic” experiment to “cure” a young man from being Gay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIEptTd0keo&feature=player_embedded
Remember, Rekers co-founded the Family Research Council with James Dobson, yet was implicated in the “Rent-Boy” scandal in 2010….
It is this kind of defamation and oppression in the name of Christ that we must oppose.
All my best to you and your partner, and Happy Pride!
--ez