[A] year ago, filmmakers Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross watched their documentary “The State of Marriage” — spotlighting the Vermonters who struggled for two decades to win same-sex couples the freedom to wed — debut at the Provincetown International Film Festival.
They didn’t know that, one week later, the U.S. Supreme Court would affirm a nationwide right to marry.
Or that, one year later, a gunman would kill at least 49 people at a gay nightclub in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
Or that, aiming to create “the center of a national and international outreach campaign to advance full and inclusive LGBT rights,” their work would land this month on such prominent platforms as iTunes, Amazon.com and cable and satellite channels throughout North America.
“The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York hosted a screening the other night, and so many people came up to us after and said they were emotionally engaged and moved,” Ross says. “They didn’t know the story, but they do now.”
Kaufman first came in contact with the subject when, hosting a daily radio show in Middlebury beginning in 1995, he watched as Vermont became the first state to adopt same-sex civil unions in 2000 and, as he moved to Los Angeles to make films, recognize full marriage rights by a legislative vote in 2009.
The hour-and-a-half documentary tells how Vermont lawyers Susan Murray and Beth Robinson turned a few hundred dollars and a handful of volunteers into the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force in 1995, then partnered with Mary Bonauto, the Boston-based civil rights project director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, to build a campaign in support of marriage equality both for the state and the nation.
Recruiting three same-sex couples to apply for Vermont marriage licenses in 1997, the lawyers filed a lawsuit (Stan Baker, et al. v. State of Vermont) when town clerks rejected the requests. That led the Vermont Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex rights in 1999 and the state Legislature to start on the path to full marriage rights.
The Hollywood Reporter has hailed the movie as “an indispensable addition to the filmed history of the marriage equality movement.” Entertainment Weekly included it on its map of “Hollywood’s road to marriage equality, from ‘The Golden Girls’ to ‘Modern Family.’”
But unless Vermonters attended one of three single-night showings this past year in Burlington, Montpelier or Brattleboro, they haven’t seen the documentary.
“We wanted to preserve and pass on this important piece of history, and we also wanted to show how people from both political parties can come together to do the right thing and really move society forward,” Kaufman says. “That’s such an important message for today.”
Enter a company called The Orchard — deemed by Variety as Hollywood’s new “hot film distributor” — which acquired the title to share on dozens of venues, including Comcast, Dish and DirecTV, Google Play and, soon, DVD.
“We feel like every Vermonter is a stakeholder in the story,” Kaufman says, “and we hope people will see it.”
Kaufman and Ross are promoting the movie as they prepare to wed this summer.
“Making a film about people who fought so hard to get married,” she says, “was so inspiring for us.”
But they know the larger struggle for equality isn’t over. Sunday’s shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando is sparking worldwide headlines, with the father of the suspect explaining his son recently grew angry at the sight of two men kissing. The filmmakers also note that, less reported, people face daily discrimination regarding employment, housing and public accommodation.
“There still are a shocking number of states where it’s legal for same-sex couples to get married, but they can also lose their job or housing because of that marriage,” Kaufman says. “There’s still a long way to go and so much work to be done.”
