THE FREEDOM TO MARRY FILM REVIEW

In 1983, very few gay organizations were making progress when AIDS hit.  AIDS shattered the silence about Gay people’s lives and many were uneducated about what caused the disease, how it was contracted and what could be done to eradicate it or stop it from spreading and killing millions of lives.

Around that same time, many believed that marriage was an institution only valid between a man and woman.  So much so that a ruling was literally laughed out of court stating “marriage can not exits between faggots.”  Former President Bill Clinton signed a bill that actually banned the government from regulating same-sex marriages and yet, after 2013 was it legal thanks to the state of Hawaii.

The question today remains “Is it okay for states to ban same-sex marriage?”    Is it illegal to not recognize marriages from other states?

Well, thanks to Evan Wolfson, Founder of a national organization, The Freedom To Marry, is known as the architect of the same-sex marriage movement.  It is his efforts to “free people just like Moses” that resulted in his groundbreaking legal win in Maine 2012.  His journey to fight this endless legal battle was tiring and sometimes extremely stressful with no light at the end of the rainbow.  However, Wolfson, along with Mary Bonauto (G.L.A.D.) made tremendous strides for the cause.

The Freedom to Marry chronicles Wolfson, Bonauto and a few couples along the way who they fought the good fight with.  This documentary, at times, was just as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking, but inspiring all at once.

As a female and a person of color, I wholeheartedly understand what it feels like for people to tell who you can’t love or what you can’t do because you are different.  These prejudices in our society should not exists ostracizing human beings to feel less than.  We should have the quality of life afforded to every other human on earth…not just a select group that society feels is worthy.  Watching The Freedom to Marry will leave you hopeful that while our society has made much progress in the fight for  same-sex marriages and prejudices against the LGBT community we still have so much  farther  to go.  The Freedom to Marry can be seen now via Ro*Co films in the US and Canada.