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Dustin Lance Black - Screenwriter and Activist

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Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sacker.

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It's 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain.

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In those 50 years, the campaign for LGBT rights has won landmark

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victories in many parts of the world, perhaps best

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symbolised by the normalisation of gay marriage

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My guest today is American filmmaker Dustin Lance Black.

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He won an Oscar for the film Milk and has just completed a major

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series on the struggle for gay rights.

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Has the time come to declare a famous victory?

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Dustin Lance Black, welcome to HARDtalk.

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Thank you for having the. To what extent do you think that your

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experiences from childhood to now has a gay person have come to define

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your creative output? Oh, boy. It is one of the many things about me that

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does define me creatively. Certainly when I am teaching my students -

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because I teach classes in screenwriting sometimes - and I say

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to them, tell me about you, what is it about you that is unique, where

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do you come from, what are you interested in, these are the things

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that make you incredibly unique. And the things that make you unique

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could make you marketable in the competitive film isthmus. They give

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you that unique voice -- business. I encourage them to look at your own

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voice and the core of who you are because it can make you marketable

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and you can succeed. I think far too often writers and filmmakers try to

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go for what is profitable, what is hot at the moment. And the truth of

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that is you are going to get your butt kicked in the end because

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someone else is going to be very passionate about that subject. So,

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at the core of you and your sort of self identity, being gay is a really

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important part of that? Sure, being gay is a big part of that, because

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that has a connection to love and who I love and who I spend my life

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with and the family that I am going to build. But also where I grew up

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in the United States probably formed who I am. So, growing up in the

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south in a very conservative atmosphere, growing up in the

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military and understanding what that meant. The two are woven together in

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a sense, because I think it is right to say that you had an awareness of

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being different and of being gay whether you put it that way yourself

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or not, you have an awareness of three early in your childhood and

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that was something that in the community you came from, the

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religion you were born into, that was tough. You mean with the

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Mormons? Yeah. My mum, my father, the entire side of the family was a

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devout Mormon, I was a devout Mormon growing. I believed what I was.

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Including when I was seven years old church beamed in the prophet. He

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came onto the screen. It was as close to God... It was Godlike, very

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intimidating. I will never forget him saying next to the sin of murder

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comes the sin of sexual impurity, homosexuality. Now, I might not have

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known what that meant at that moment, but I soon learnt... At

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first I thought it was a new Scrabble word, because it had a X in

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it and all of those syllables. Soon I learnt I would bring great shame

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to myself and my family if anyone found out that I had a crush on the

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boy down the street, which I did. That I would also be going to hell.

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I would not be with my heavenly father. So I... And if I did fall in

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love it would have to be something hidden, suppressed. Imagine... That

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is an enormous darkness to take through childhood, adolescents and

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into adult hood without being able to discuss it. There was no one to

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discuss it with. You would be in trouble. If I discussed it in the

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military, you couldn't be openly gay. You would be kicked out. If I

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discussed it with anyone in our society, which was very conservative

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at the time, I would be in great trouble - in some places it was

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still a crime. You would be expelled. I would certainly be

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expelled from the things that create community where I am from, so my

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church, from my neighbourhood and from my school I would be a pariah.

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And that creates isolation, and that isolation makes young, talented LGBT

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people fade and stop trying to stand out in positive ways. And for me

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that isolation ultimately lead to thoughts of taking my own life.

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Because you tell a young person that when they first feel love that

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that's not going to lead to things like dates and the prom and marriage

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but that it could lead to prison or electroshock therapy and certainly

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disown them from church or home, you wonder what is the purpose of

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living. You took the decision, you came out to your mother, it must

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have been very difficult, when you were 21. Yeah, I was 21 years old. I

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didn't mean to come out. We were living in Washington, DC and I was

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home for Christmas. We would sit up and talk all night long. You have to

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understand, my mum had been paralysed from a young age. So she

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was different too but she was very conservative. At a certain point I

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wasn't giving anything to the conversation. I wasn't speaking. She

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filled in the blanks. She was mad about "Don't ask, don't tell", which

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was a law at the time that as long as no one knew that you were found

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out... Staying in the closet. It not only hurt the people in the

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military. My mum didn't see it that way. She was angry because it let

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gay or lesbian people in in any form. These people she had been

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taught were next to murderers in terms of sin. These people who were

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wrong and sick and broken. She just kept going on about it. I cant out

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because at a certain point, even though I was literally praying not

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to, I could feel the warmth of my tears hit my cheeks. And a good

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southern mum can read those tears. She said she knew when I started to

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cry, I will get teary just thinking back to that moment, because I

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didn't want to come out, I wasn't ready to come out. That coming out

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experience, her reaction to it I will never forget. She just got very

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quiet, her heartbreaking, knowing her son would face challenges she

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didn't want him to. She said why, why would you choose this? That is

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what thought was. Will never forget pointing to her crutches, she was

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paralysed from polio, on the debt, and I said, mum, why did you choose

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those? And she didn't have an answer to that. That was the beginning of

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our conversation and it was a conversation that would go on for

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quite sometime. It was not easy. She did not immediately accept me but

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there was a lot of unlearning to be done. A lot of that happened when

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she met my gay and lesbian friends when she came to my graduation from

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UCLA film school and she heard the stories of gay and lesbian young

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people. And they didn't match up with what she heard from the Mormon

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prophet, the military, those personal stories, not political

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stories, not about the Constitution or science, personal stories from

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these young people and myself eventually and raced the generations

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of homophobia she had learnt from the church and from the state and it

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was gone -- erased. I will never forget after a night near my

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graduation when she spent an entire evening with my gay friends, that

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she finally held me and Huntony and in those tears I knew that the lies

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and distortions were gone -- hugged me. That was love. Understood and a

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standing who I am and that was love. You have said something important.

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As I have looked at your career, research in meeting you, your faith

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in storytelling and the degree to which it can make a difference to

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the way people see and think. Because I want to take you forward

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now, you said you want to UCLA film school and after that you developed

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a very successful career writing, screenwriting. And I think by the

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time you were 30- 31 you had extraordinary success. You became

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preoccupied with telling the story of one man, Harvey Milk, the first

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publicly gay elected official in any US city in San Francisco. Right.

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What was it about the Milk story that you thought would change hearts

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and minds? I will break that down a bit. First I think only a story can

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change hearts and I think only hearts can change minds. That is how

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I see it. If you want to change it, don't start here. That is a mistake

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we see on TV programmes and news programmes all day and night. Start

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here, tell a personal story. That is - personal leap over the walls built

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by politics, region, religion and by race - go right through them. I have

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always believed in the power of story to do that. And I get that

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from the south, I learned it from a bunch of conservative southern folks

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who liked whiskey and telling stories that night. Secondly, there

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was a story - I was lucky enough at a certain point, my mum remarried at

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a good Catholic, which meant he went to church twice a year. And he was

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much more open-minded and he had orders to ship off to the Bay area

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in California and my mum loaded up the car with three boys, a cat and

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all of our belongings in the trunk and we took off to California. There

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I heard the story of Harvey Milk as a teenager. A story of an openly gay

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men. I didn't know that there was such a thing. I thought, boy, that

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is a dangerous thing to be. That is how his story progress. Yes, like

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you said, he won an election, winning at the ballot box. Let me

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stop you there because Sean Penn makes an amazing appearance. Let's

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give people a sense of what it was like in the 70s when Harvey Milk was

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making his name. Let's have a look. My name is Harvey Milk and I am here

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to recruit you! I want to recruit you for the fight to preserve your

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democracy, brothers and sisters. You must come out! Come out to your

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parents, come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends.

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Come out to your neighbours, come out to your fellow workers! Once and

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for all, let's break down the myths and destroy the lies and distortion!

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So, that is Harvey Milk at the sort of height of his compelling

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rhetoric. The sad, terrible thing is that no sooner had he sought of won

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an audience for this powerful message than he was murdered, shot

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and killed, 1977, because he had a lot of enemies. Right. I wonder

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whether you from Harvey Milk's life that you were going to have to fight

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very hard and confront people and difficult things to get your message

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out there? Well, I take my lesson from Harvey in many ways. It is that

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you have to reach out to unexpected allies. And by unexpected I mean

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some of those people who you might think are your enemies. If you are

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going to build the coalitions to create progress. Now, that means

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looking past yourself, looking past your needs and desires, and I don't

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just mean 1978, I mean 2017. Minorities need to live listen to

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the message, how do you breach the coalition of the uses? Care for your

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neighbour and your own needs. How do you understand every single person

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in this planet right now is a minority in one way or another. It

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depends how you slice the pie. You can help them find the interest that

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they have in your plate if you help them with yours. He went to the

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union workers, white, working class union workers who could not afford

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to put their talented kids through school, and created an alliance with

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him, with them, that is how he got elected. What you have said to me is

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incredibly positive and it is about building alliances and coalitions,

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perhaps some of them unexpected, but you also have to take things on and

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it seems to me one of the things you have done, you have had to do, is

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confront to a certain extent your own religion and your own

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background. Sure. For example, you have had a lot of successful TV

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scripts and films in your life and you have taken time-out to be a

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political activist. One of the things you were most activist on was

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proposition aid, came the fight to stop gay marriage in California. For

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a while they were successful. My church was leading the way

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financially. You had to take on the Mormons and you made a film about it

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which, too many people inside the faith that you had been born into,

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was disgraceful. Was a betrayal. I would imagine it was also a

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revelation to many of them. The director of the documentary said

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would you take part in this and help make the documentary that holds the

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church accountable? I was nervous and I called my mother and she said

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he do you go again. I said, yeah, but I just want to tell the truth.

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What trouble can we get in if we do that? We were just following the

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money. On the other side of that, there was no attack from the church.

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They gave me a phone call. They said speak with us. We want to meet with

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you in Salt Lake City. The lessons are learned from my mother, keeping

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channels open, I said yes. I went there. Day invited me to a Mormon

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Tabernacle Spectacular. It is their biggest show of the year. They

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invited me and some gay and lesbian families. What became evident was

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that those lesbians and their children, they were having as much

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trouble keeping those children quiet as the straight couples. The

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challenges were not different. I will never forget the white-haired

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man, the bleak -- public relations manager of the church, he took my

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hand, and said, do you want a family one day? I said yes. He got tearful

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and said I did not realise that. In the subsequent conversation, it

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became clear the mission was about breaking down the institution the

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Mormon church holds dear. And what they learned in those days and weeks

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was that we want our families protected and respected, along with

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our children. That is the bottomline. That is interesting.

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Although you are now a campaigner and activist for gay rights, you

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sound like a conservative, especially when you talk about what

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marriage means to you. We have language in common with

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conservatives and progressives. We all have children. We start speaking

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the same language when we are all together. What is interesting in

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politics, both in the United States and much of the West, is the fight

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you are fighting, the right for a marriage, it has been won. -- gay.

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63% of Americans believe it is right and accept and embrace it as part of

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America. You have just made a film called When We Rise, looking at 40

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years and more of gay rights, you have been filming and reporting and

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remarking on a journey that has reached its final destination.

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Absolutely not. Gay marriage was the prime mover unexpectedly of our

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movement. We all got together with some folks, legal minds, and we sued

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the State of California and the Federal Court over the proposition.

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If we were going to do it right, we needed some allies. We had a lawyer

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go to The Supreme Court for us, the same who went for George Bush to the

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White House. We told the personal stories, because we understood we

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could get five out of nine votes of The Supreme Court but if we wanted

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to change the culture, make the world safe for LGBT families, we had

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to tell stories, about them and children. Those are the stories were

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told in public in those five years on the way to The Supreme Court.

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They were told in court. They did not only convince those five of nine

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judges, but public opinion is well. I was doing what I did with my mum

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on a massive scale. Getting back to the point over whether you have

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reached their destination, a sense of achievement, how deep it runs,

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Donald Trump is now in the White House... I can barely hear you say

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those words. It is tough for me. I wonder whether you believe the

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election of Donald Trump... Certain things already happened. For

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example, is rollback, the predisposition of allowing

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transgender children in schools to choose which button they want to go

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in, it has been rolled back. -- decision. It is disgusting. You said

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it was so important to build bridges and understand people with different

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views. How do they sit together? I think first and foremost, if this

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was a man I truly believed did this because of his belief, I would be

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more curious about where he is coming from, but it is incredibly

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apparent this man is using fear to get power. That is what that is.

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This is not a man of true faith who believes there is something actually

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wrong here and is taking action on it. This is a man who, like Nero,

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believes if you divide, you can conquer, and he did. People of

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perversity, who -- diversity, who have become drunk

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on their success a little bit, need to look at this. I remember going to

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The Supreme Court remembering how proud we were. But I believed we had

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lost sight of how we got there, through coalition of the usses.

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Anyone on their own is vulnerable. You would hear the chanting, black,

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white, same fight. But I did not see many LGBT people at those rallies.

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We are losing the people that got us where we are. From the passion I am

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hearing in your voice, we clearly have to keep fighting. I wonder if

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you still have to keep the filmmaking on hold to continue this

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political fight. You know, I am doing some filmmaking addressing it,

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like When We Rise. It was billed as a reminder and warning, if we lose

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sight of our brothers and sisters and other movements, we are

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vulnerable. That is why it is called When We Rise, not When LGBT Rise. It

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comes from the black movement, and the peace movement from the 70s

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which we have forgotten about. I was writing this as a warning to get

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back to coalitions so we would not be defeated and the pendulum of

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progress would keep going forward. Instead, we were conquered. Now it

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is a warning. I am doing projects which show a path forward. It is not

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unique to be in this position where the pension is so far back. It is

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part of a process, and there is a way forward. -- pendulum. You have

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talked a lot about what drives your filmmaking and activism. You also

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said earlier you want a big family. You are married, happily married.

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Yes. Children is definitely something you want to embrace.

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Absolutely. Yeah. I am wondering how would you will fit all of this in.

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The wonderful thing about writing in particular is that reduction is

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difficult, but with writing, you are also looking for distraction, and

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children provide that. You need something when your brain is

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exhausted. No eyes are better than children's eyes to help you do that.

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I want to raise children and look through their rise, to make mistakes

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and encourage them to learn more and more and more. -- eyes. That is why

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I have been in this fight for so long. For me, it is about family.

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Dustin Lance Black, we have to end it there. But thank you so much.

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Thank you very much. Yesterday was one of those days

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for the southern half of the UK. Yes, the covers were

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on the court at Wimbledon. The rain was heavy at times

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and the umbrellas were out. It wasn't just across the south-east

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of England where we saw rain.

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