Over the next two weeks, Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator senior Matt Pohl will screen his full-length documentary on gay marriage and be a groom in a mock gay wedding.
The film, entitled "Mission to Matrimony: A Gay Marriage Proposal," focuses around the events of May 17, 2004 when the States of Massachusetts legalized the granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The first screening at Tufts will be on Wednesday, Mar. 16.
"This issue is a very complex one that needs to be debated and analyzed and discussed across the country," Pohl said. "The documentary is needed desperately."
Pohl and his brother Noah, a sophomore at Brown University, filmed the event in Cambridge.
"The message of the documentary will be directed toward a wide audience, to people on both sides of the issue, [and to those] who don't have an opinion staked out yet," Pohl said. "It is the anti-Michael Moore film."
"I think it is great that people are making a movie like this, provided that they are showing the complete picture," freshman Wei-Che Ko said. "I would be disappointed if they used the movie for propaganda."
According to Pohl, his film is especially unique because it is not aided by a narrator or a central character that speaks for other people. The documentary follows two sets of same-sex couples and their families.
The film includes interviews with Bob Barr, a former U.S. congressman who wrote the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and Patrick Gurriero, Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans - a gay Republican group based in Washington, D.C.
Hollywood movie producer Jerri Sher met Pohl after he had started filming and became interested in making his project go nationwide. "She really thought we had potential for a full-length documentary," Pohl said. "It just exploded into this tremendous project and now millions will see it."
Sher produced the movies "Apocalypse Bop" in 1996, and "The Autumn Heart" in 1999.
Pohl also has another project in the works to spread the word about same-sex marriage rights at Tufts - he will be one of the grooms in a mock-marriage ceremony at Hillel.
The event is sponsored by JQuest, an organization spearheaded by Pohl and based out of Hillel that brings together Jewish, LGBT students, and others interested in the gay cause.
Pohl decided to stage the mock same-sex wedding on campus to spread the message about Judaism and its reaction to same-sex marriage.
"The whole purpose [is] multi-faceted. You are mixing marriage, which has a lot of cultural aspects to it, with Judaism, a religion," Pohl said. "The whole point is to provoke discussion on issues that affect a lot of people."
The mock wedding will take place next week, and the "A Mission to Matrimony" Web site goes online tomorrow.
