Subject: SUBMISSION: New film by Mosbacher
From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 23:03:05 -0400

WELCOME!

Attached is a story for your periodical to consider for publication.

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Dr. Dee Mosbacher's latest film "All God's Children" targets African-American
churches and tries to undo some of the damage the Christian Right is  doing
with its film "Gay Rights, Special Rights." You may remember Mosbacher as the
producer of the documentary "Straight from the Heart." The story is below.

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the author, Gip Plaster, prior to publication at [email-masked]. If your
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ARTICLE BELOW:

by Gip Plaster
 Dr. Dee Mosbacher thinks African-American churches should know the truth
about gay and lesbian people, and she is providing it in a new documentary
called "All God's Children."
 The film was created to counteract the effects of a video called "Gay
Rights, Special Rights" produced by Lou Sheldon, the leader of the
Traditional Values Coalition in Anaheim, California. Sheldon's video has been
widely distributed to African-American churches, but it portrays a distorted
image of gay and lesbian people.
 Mosbacher's nearly 30-minute response features a mostly black, mostly gay
and lesbian choir singing gospel music and contains interviews with
African-American leaders who support gay and lesbian rights. The Rev. Jesse
Jackson, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and Congresswoman Maxine Waters are
among the black pastors and leaders who are interviewed. Producers are
delaying release of the film until mid-March to add comments from composer
and producer Quincy Jones.
 Harvard professor Cornell West is also interviewed.
 "If I have one word for fellow Christians, I would ask them to keep their
eyes on the love of Jesus and to not confuse the blood at Calvary with the
Kool-Aid of homophobia in America," West said in the video. "By being open
enough to everybody, it means that we have to call into question our own
particular prejudices that we inherit that have nothing to do with the loving
gospel of Jesus."
 The images in Mosbacher's film challenge the opinions in Sheldon's
production.
 Sheldon, who is featured in his production, also includes interviews with
former U. S. Attorney General Edwin Meese and Christian Coalition leader
Ralph Reed. The video defines what it calls "four myths" that gays and
lesbians promote, including the "myth" that homosexuals are a minority and
the "myth" that homosexuals are ten percent or more of the population.
 "Gay Rights/Special Rights" also uses an interview with a register nurse who
said homosexuals "lick one another's rectums"  and "urinate on each other."  
 "The gay agenda is to have sex in any way you please," the female nurse
said.
 "We are on the very verge of our civilization and our culture being totally
overhauled by the homosexual community," Sheldon said.
 Mosbacher said it is particularly important to counter this production aimed
at the African-American community to keep the religious right from dividing
two minority groups who share common interests. She hopes to find individuals
and groups who will "adopt-a-church" by showing the video to a congregation
and presenting educational materials.
 She said this kind of grassroots approach to churches can be effective. The
offensive must be led "not with secular tools but with spiritual tools," she
said.
 "One of my hopes for the film... is to try to build some bridges and
coalitions between our communities," Mosbacher said.
 This is not the first venture of Woman Vision, her production company. It
produced "Straight from the Heart," a 24-minute Academy Award nominated short
documentary about parents who had difficulty accepting their gay and lesbian
children. It tells the story of several families, including a police chief
who is proud of his lesbian daughter, a Mormon family whose son is believed
the first in Idaho to die of AIDS and a black woman with two lesbian
daughter. 
 Mosbacher, a mental health physician who left practice to devote her time to
film-making,  is also the daughter of Robert Mosbacher, the Secretary of
Commerce during the Bush administration. She is a long-time activist in the
San Francisco area.
 She produced the film with Dr. Frances Reid, who also coproduced "Straight
from the Heart," and Dr. Sylvia Rhue, a co-founder of the National Black Gay
and Lesbian Leadership Forum.
 "Words and images are powerful," Rhue said at the Dallas premiere. "They do
affect our lives."
 Mosbacher agreed. She said that is why she is doing something about
Sheldon's videotaped attack against the gay and lesbian community.
 "We can't just sit still and take whatever the religious right is dishing
out," Mosbacher said.
 "All God's Children" can be ordered from Transit Media Film Library by
calling 800-343-5540.
*END*