Himself gay and Mormon, Cowan clashed with his family over his sexual orientation and the beliefs of their faith, but it was a conversation between him and a sibling about her support of Proposition 8 cemented his commitment to make the film: “8: The Mormon Proposition.”

“I thought, if this is the dialogue in my Mormon family, then what is like in other Mormon households,” the Miami-area filmmaker and former Utah television journalist said. “If this is the pain I feel over Prop. 8 and other Mormon efforts to quash (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights, what is the pain of others multiplied all over the world?”

While the 80-minute documentary is still in production, a trailer posted on the Internet has caught the eye of both sides of the debate, viewed by roughly 70,000 people in its first 78 hours online. And the Web site that hosts the video has had nearly 28,000 visitors since it went online last month.

Cowan contends that the church was the most influential force in the campaign and paints the faith’s theology and culture as historically anti-gay.

Internet commentary on the trailer is divided.

Depending on the source, the movie is either an emotional and scathing indictment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or an unfair characterization of the Utah-based church’s beliefs and motivation for political involvement. The church was part of a coalition of faiths and conservative groups that pushed for approval of a gay marriage ban in California’s constitution.

Church officials have seen the trailer and other online materials about the film, LDS spokeswoman Kim Farah said, and “it is obvious that anyone looking for balance and thoughtful discussion of a serious subject will need to look elsewhere.”

Like many faiths, Mormonism defends traditional marriage as an institution ordained by God that is central to a healthy society. The church has consistently worked against legislation to legalize gay marriage since the 1990s. Last week, however, church leaders endorsed a pair of Salt Lake City ordinances that make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT persons in employment and housing.

Narrated by Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black – also gay and raised Mormon – the film chronicles the campaign and includes personal stories from straight and gay Mormons, including newlyweds Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones, who married in San Francisco on June 17, 2008, the first day same sex marriage was legal in California.

The film touches on gay suicide and homelessness, which many believe occur at higher-than-average rates among gay Mormons and highlights the strong opposition to gay rights from the Utah Legislature and lobbyists who are predominantly Latter-day Saints.

It also draws on past statements of former leaders and efforts to cure homosexuality with electroshock therapy at the church-owned Brigham Young University.

Mormon church officials appear in the film in footage obtained through other filmmakers, media outlets and in a church-produced video that appeared on the Web.

Cowan said he “begged” for church participation – through both official channels and personal connections – but was rejected. “I got an immediate no,” he said.

Alex Nibley, a Utah filmmaker and digital media instructor said the trailer’s powerful, high-quality footage promises an emotional look at it subject. Still, he said, it appears to fit within the typically polaraized spectrum of film takes on the Mormon church – most either that promote the faith or attack its views.

“I suspect that the impact will be to confirm certain ideas that people have about the church,” Nibley said. “It may expand some perceptions in the public at large, but it will probably not shake the faith of a lot of those who aren’t going to pay much attention to it.”

Cowan said his goal for the film was to document what he believes is a crusade against gay people and to illustrate that the faith operates as both a church and a political action committee.

A release date for the film, believed to be the first about Prop. 8, is uncertain. Cowan is shopping the film to festivals.

The Utah-based church’s support ahead of Tuesday night’s vote came despite its steadfast opposition to gay marriage, reflected in the high-profile role it played last year in California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure that barred such unions.

“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.

Passage made Salt Lake City the first Utah community to prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under the two new ordinances, it is illegal to fire someone from their job or evict someone from their residence because they are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.

Utah lawmakers tend to quickly fall in line when the influential church makes a rare foray into legislative politics. So Tuesday’s action could have broad reaching effects in this highly conservative state where more than 80 percent of lawmakers and the governor are church members.

“What happened here tonight I do believe is a historic event,” said Brandie Balken, director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah. “I think it establishes that we can stand together on common ground that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are lot of things that we can work on and be allies.”

But the church has pointed out an inherent dispute it has with the gay lifestyle. Mormonism considers traditional marriages central to God’s plan. Gays are welcome in church, but must remain celibate to retain church callings and full membership.

It’s strong support for Proposition 8 in California last year drew a sharp reaction from gay rights supporters nationwide, with many protesting outside temples that singled out Mormons as the key culprits in restricting the rights of gay couples.

Since then, however, Utah’s gay community has sought to engage church leaders in quiet conversations to help foster better understanding, said Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Utah Pride Center.

“I thought this conversation would never come to be while I was here in Salt Lake City,” said Larabee, adding that the discussions have “shifted her perspective of what’s possible” and could foreshadow a different relationship between the two sides.

But addressing the council on Tuesday, Otterson said the endorsement is not a shift in the church’s position on gay rights and stressed it “remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Church support for the ordinances is due in part to the way the legislation was drafted to protect those rights. Exceptions in the legislation allow churches to maintain, without penalty, religious principles and religion-based codes of conduct or rules.

“In drafting these ordinances, the city has granted common-sense rights that should be available to everyone, while safeguarding the crucial rights of religious organizations,” Otterson said Tuesday .

Previous Utah legislation that sought statewide protections for the gay community did not contain those exceptions.

And although this was the church’s first public endorsement of specific legislation, it is not the first time the church has voiced support for some gay rights. In August 2008 the church issued a statement saying it supports gay rights related to hospitalization, medical care, employment, housing or probate as long as they “do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.”

Last year, church leaders were silent on a package of gay rights bills known as the Common Ground Initiative, dooming them from the start.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks referred to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in an address at Brigham Young University-Idaho that church officials described as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom.

Oaks suggested that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices in the public square, according to his prepared remarks.

“The extent and nature of religious devotion in this nation is changing,” said Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a church governing body. “The tide of public opinion in favor of religion is receding, and this probably portends public pressures for laws that will impinge on religious freedom.”

Oaks’ address comes as gay-rights activists mount a legal challenge to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that overturned gay marriage in California. His comments about civil rights angered gay rights supporters who consider the struggle to enact same-sex marriage laws as a major civil rights cause.

“Blacks were lynched and beaten and denied the right to vote by their government,” said Marc Solomon, marriage director for Equality California, which spearheaded the No on 8 campaign. “To compare that to criticism of Mormon leaders for encouraging people to give vast amounts of money to take away rights of a small minority group is illogical and deeply offensive.”

Solomon said the Mormon church hierarchy has every right to speak out, “but in the public sphere, one should expect that people will disagree.”

In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election’s aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.

“It may be offensive to some – maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” said Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice who clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Salt Lake City-based Mormon church, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has shied from politics historically but was a key player in the pro-Proposition 8 coalition. The LDS First Presidency, its highest governing body, announced its support for Proposition 8 in a letter read at every California congregation, and individual Mormons heeded the church’s calls to donate their money and time.

After the measure prevailed, its opponents focused much of their ire on Mormons, organizing boycotts of businesses with LDS ties and protests at Mormon worship places. While some demonstrations were peaceful, in others church windows were shattered and slurs were hurled at the church’s founding fathers.

Some of the most pointed comments in Oaks’ Tuesday address focus on Proposition 8. Oaks said the free exercise of religion is threatened by those who believe it conflicts with “the newly alleged ‘civil right’ of same-gender couples to enjoy the privileges of marriage.”

“Those who seek to change the foundation of marriage should not be allowed to pretend that those who defend the ancient order are trampling on civil rights,” Oaks said. “The supporters of Proposition 8 were exercising their constitutional right to defend the institution of marriage …”

Oaks said that while “aggressive intimidation” connected to Proposition 8 was primarily directed at religious people and symbols, “it was not anti-religious as such.” He called the incidents “expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest.”

“As such, these incidents of ‘violence and intimidation’ are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic,” he said. “In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation.”

The Mormon church has faced criticism for its past stances on race; it wasn’t until 1978 that the church lifted a prohibition that denied full church membership to black men of African descent.

In an interview Monday, Oaks said the Proposition 8 saga was one of several trends that motivated him to deliver the address, but it was “not the trigger.”

“There are civil rights involved in this – the right to speak your mind, to participate in the election,” Oaks said. “But you don’t have a civil right to win an election or retaliate against those who prevail.”

Fred Karger, founder of the gay rights group Californians Against Hate, said Oaks’ speech is part of a public relations offensive to “try to turn the tables on what has been a complete disaster for the Mormon church … They are trying to be the victim here. They’re not. They’re the perpetrators.”

In his address, Oaks also rejected any religious test for public office. He said that if “a candidate is seen to be rejected at the ballot box primarily because of religious belief or affiliation, the precious free exercise of religion is weakened at its foundation …”

In the interview Monday, Oaks said he was referring in part to the 2008 presidential bid of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose Mormon faith troubled some evangelicals.

Herbert took office in mid-August after Jon Huntsman resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China.

Within weeks of his inauguration, Herbert said he doesn’t think it should be illegal to discriminate against someone for being gay or transgender.

In Utah, it’s currently legal to fire someone or evict them from housing for being gay. Herbert contends that discriminating against gay people is wrong – but says there’s no need for a law to prevent it.

He’s also expressed concerns that including gay and transgender people in anti-discrimination laws could enable a court to overturn the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage and lead to other groups seeking protection.

“Where do you stop? I mean that’s the problem going down that slippery road. Pretty soon we’re going to have a special law for blue-eyed blondes … or people who are losing their hair a little bit,” Herbert told reporters in August. “There’s some support for about anything we put out there. I’m just saying we end up getting bogged down sometimes with the minutiae of things that government has really no role to be involved in.”

Twenty-one states have laws prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 12 extend those laws to gender identity – California, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Several other states protect public employees who are gay or transgender.

Leaders of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah said Herbert told them he’s open to having a dialogue about stopping discrimination.

“Fundamentally, he agrees that discrimination is a problem. We’re coming at this from how to solve a problem we agree on. That’s a great place to begin,” said Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy director.

Carlson said Equality Utah members provided Herbert with information regarding housing and job discrimination in the state and spelled out the need for gay couples to have hospital visitation rights and the right to make emergency medical decisions.

Later Tuesday, Herbert met with the Foundation for Reconciliation, a group organized in June by current and former Mormons frustrated by their faith’s political activism in California. In 2008, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was part of a coalition of groups that worked to pass Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in California.

Foundation director Cheryl Nunn, who lives in both Utah and Santa Cruz, Calif., said the group’s executive committee is made up entirely of heterosexuals concerned about issues affecting LGBT individuals.

The foundation requested a meeting with Herbert following his comments about anti-discrimination laws. The group has asked Herbert to form a bipartisan task force to investigate inequality in Utah’s legal code toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

“He described himself as a conservative who was very wary about increasing government in any way,” foundation spokesman Peter Danzig said Tuesday night. “But he agreed with us that it’s hard to make public policy without accurate information.”

Danzig said that Herbert also said he doesn’t want Utah to be perceived as state that is rejecting or unwelcoming of any of its citizens.

Herbert spokeswoman Angie Welling said the point of Tuesday’s meetings was not to make any policy decisions.

“This is really an information gathering and kind of an introduction to one another so the conversation can continue,” Welling said.

Prosecutor Sim Gill says in a statement there is reason to believe that although the property is private, Matt Aune and his partner, Derek Jones, did not think they could legally be ejected from the plaza because it is perceived to be open to the public.

Aune and Jones have said they were targeted because they are gay. The July 9 incident has prompted two mass kissing demonstrations at the plaza.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has disputed Aune’s and Jones’ version of the events, saying their behavior was lewd and more was involved than a “simple kiss of the cheek.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Thomas S. Monson presented Obama with details of his family’s genealogy during their first face-to-face meeting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is Mormon, helped arrange the meeting and joined it.

“I’m grateful for the genealogical records that they brought with them and am looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters,” Obama said in a statement after the meeting. “It’s something our family will treasure for years to come.”

Mormon leaders traditionally meet with new presidents and share with them records from the Salt Lake City-based church’s extensive genealogical records.

“President Obama’s heritage is rich with examples of leadership, sacrifice and service,” Monson said in a statement. “We were very pleased to research his family history and are honored to present it to him today.”

The five leather-bound books detail Obama’s family history for several generations. Parts of that history were already known, such as his ties to former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. The two are eighth cousins.

Obama is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. The French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England.

The Empowering Spirits Foundation says the “kiss-in” is intended as a peaceful rally to encourage dialogue between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the gay community.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the temple near La Jolla, Calif.

It would be the third kissing demonstration held since Matt Aune and Derek Jones were cited for trespassing on the church-owned Main Street Plaza on July 9 in Salt Lake City.

The couple refused to leave the plaza when security guards who saw the kiss said the behavior was inappropriate.

For the second consecutive weekend, about 100 people gathered to stage a “kiss-in” to protest the treatment of two gay men cited for trespassing July 9 after they shared a kiss on the plaza owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both gay and straight couples exchanged kisses during the protest.

Demonstrators were greeted at the south entrance by a group of protesters carrying large signs that denounced homosexuality, prompting a heated verbal exchange.

Police say no one was arrested or cited, despite a large group exchanging kisses by a reflecting pool at the plaza’s center.

“We didn’t call the police. We didn’t do anything,” church spokeswoman Kim Farah said.

The church bought one block of Salt Lake City’s Main Street to build a plaza in the 1990s alongside the Temple, where Mormon marriages and other religious rituals take place.

Matt Aune has said he and his partner, Derek Jones, exchanged a modest kiss at the plaza 11 days ago, but church officials contend their behavior was lewd.

“There was much more involved that a simple kiss of the cheek,” Farah said in a statement Friday. “They engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol.”

The men have said they were walking home from a nearby concert and cutting through the plaza on their way home.

A police report said they sat down for a kiss and were approached by a pair of church security guards, who asked them to leave because their behavior was “unwanted.”

Both were handcuffed and Aune was pinned to the ground.