ITHACA, NY—The Out of the Closet and Onto the Screen series at Ithaca College will show the documentary “Love Free or Die” on Tuesday, March 1, at 7 p.m. in Textor 101. It is free and open to the public.
In 2003, Gene Robinson became the first openly gay priest in a committed same-sex relationship to be ordained a bishop in any Christian denomination. But his consecration brought the Episcopal Church in the United States to the brink of a catastrophic schism, and resulted in threats of violence against Robinson himself. But with his beloved husband Mark at his side, Robinson continues to calmly make the case that who you love doesn’t determine whether God loves you.
“Love Free or Die” follows Robinson from small-town churches in the New Hampshire North Country to Washington’s Lincoln Memorial, where he delivered the invocation at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. His story parallels the conversations underway in many American churches about whether gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are equal to heterosexuals in the eyes of God, and also the debate in legislatures and courthouses across the nation as to whether LGBT people are entitled to equal status under the law.
The Out of the Closet and Onto the Screen series is sponsored by the Ithaca College Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Education, Outreach, and Services. For more information, visit www.ithaca.edu/lgbt.