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.

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.

Gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah plans to tell Herbert Tuesday why it thinks current laws are inadequate.

New signage is being posted on a block of Main Street between North Temple and South Temple in downtown Salt Lake City warning pedestrians that they are entering the private property held by The Church of Latter Days Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church. The signs are being posted after two men, Derek Jones and Matt aune were detained by LDS Church guards when they were found kissing on the church’s plaza.

Jones and Aune were cited with charges of trespassing but were later acquitted by the city prosecutor on grounds that the couple had not been effectively warned upon entering the private property. Citizens of Salt Lake remain uncertain regarding the previously public plaza as it was only recently acquired by the LDS church in 1999.

Initially, public right of way concessions were made by the church, but were later traded by the city in 2003 in exchange for the construction of a community center that interfered with the church. With that trade, the property became private property held by the LDS church, effectively removing any free-speech rights and allowing the church to regulate the property as they deem appropriate.

The church’s reaction to the gay couple’s public display of affection has triggered several public “kiss in” demonstrations held near the church’s property. Meanwhile the American Civili Liberties Union (ACLU) urges the church to clearly define their terms for what is appropriate on the property. Karen McCreary, executive director of the ACLU told the Salt Lake Tribune, that the signs were a “‘good start.’ She said she would liked to see the church explain, perhaps on it’s web site, what the rules governing the plaza are. That way visitors would know what behaviors could get them ejected.” The church has not taken any action to display their terms other than banning skateboarding, bicycling and roller skating prominently on their property.

Salt Lake Prosecutor Sim Gill insists that the church needs to be explicit with their warnings or close the plaza off to the public entirely. LDS church officials say that they intend to keep the plaza open and inviting for members of the community to enjoy.

In his most definitive comments yet on gay rights, Herbert told reporters he doesn’t believe sexual orientation should be a protected class in the way that race, gender and religion are.

“We don’t have to have a rule for everybody to do the right thing. We ought to just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do and we don’t have to have a law that punishes us if we don’t,” Herbert said in his first monthly KUED news conference.

In Utah, it is legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. The gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah has been trying to change state law for several years but has always been rebuffed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Last year, the group got Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman’s support for extending some rights to gay people, although none of the bills it backed became law.

Huntsman resigned earlier this month to become U.S. ambassador to China, leaving Herbert, who was lieutenant governor, in charge of the state until a special election in 2010.

Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy director, said Herbert’s comments show he doesn’t understand how prevalent discrimination is against gay and transgender people in Utah.

“I agree that we ought to be able to just do the right thing. Unfortunately, the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission makes it clear that not all employers are doing the right thing,” he said, referencing a city report released earlier this summer that said discrimination was rampant.

Salt Lake City is considering an anti-discrimination ordinance, but conservative state lawmakers already are eyeing passage of a state law that would trump it.

Herbert reserved judgment on the ordinance until he’s had a chance to read it, but said he doesn’t like the idea of protected classes in general.

“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 said. “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.”

Carlson said he wants to arrange a meeting with Herbert to help him understand the problems gay Utahns face.

“We don’t have an epidemic of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people getting fired or evicted. We do have a situation where gay and transgender people are being evicted and losing their jobs, not for job performance, but because they’re gay or transgender,” he said.

The Spectrum in St. George initially accepted a paid wedding announcement for Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones last week, but then changed course, Jones said. The San Francisco couple were legally married June 17, 2008. They wanted the announcement printed in Jones’ hometown paper ahead of a family party next week.

Jones, 30, said he initially agreed to the paper’s request that the announcement run without a photo, after a clerk told him the publisher feared the picture might make readers uncomfortable. Then Jones changed his mind and appealed to publisher Donnie Welch, asking him to reconsider.

“After all, our marriage is just as real and legal and entitled to celebration as any of the others that are announced each week in the pages of The Spectrum,” Jones wrote in an e-mail to Welch.

“This simply is not true,” Welch replied in an Aug. 10 e-mail, a copy of which the couple provided to The Associated Press. “While that may be the case in some states it is not the case in the state of Utah. As our policy is to run marriage announcements recognized by Utah law, I have made the decision not to run the announcement.”

A telephone message seeking comment from Welch was not immediately returned Thursday. The Spectrum is owned by Gannett Co. A message left at Gannett’s corporate offices in McLean, Va., was not immediately returned.

Jones said The Spectrum clerk who took his announcement information and credit card number never disclosed such a policy and later told him it was a new policy she had not known.

The policy also contradicts information published about The Spectrum last year by the national advocacy group GLAAD – Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation – which for six years has worked to open newspapers’ wedding and celebration pages to same-sex couples.

GLAAD conducts telephone surveys every two years, and says more than 1,000 papers have policies allowing the announcements. In 2008, The Spectrum was included on GLAAD’s list of “inclusive newspapers.”

A GLAAD representative contacted Welch on Wednesday, but wasn’t able to change the publisher’s mind, said Rashad Robinson, the organization’s senior director of media programs. Robinson said GLAAD has also contacted Gannett Co. to express its concern.

“At the end of the day, this is not about their editorial pages or the opinions of their columnists,” Robinson said. “This is about the celebration pages reflecting the community, and a community is going to have people from many very different walks of life. We are diminished if our stories are put aside.”

On Thursday, GLAAD posted a message on its Web site asking supporters to contact the paper to express concerns. Robinson also said GLAAD plans to contact Spectrum advertisers, many of whom have long-standing nondiscrimination policies.

“The paper said the decision was in the best business interests of the paper,” Robinson said. “So the question is, do these advertisers, who have a long track record of diversity, want to be lumped in with a business decision that falls down on the side of inequality?”

The California Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in the state in June 2008, not long before Barrick and Jones wed. Less than five months later, California voters approved Proposition 8, a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California. In May, the court upheld the ban, but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the ban took effect would remain legally married.

Gay marriage is banned in Utah.

Jones said that although he and Barrick, 28, actively fought Proposition 8, when their announcement was rejected Barrick “didn’t want to be the poster couple for gay marriage,” so they decided to let it go.

“But I’m an attorney and I couldn’t sleep that night,” said Jones, a Utah native, who like Barrick was raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “My instinct is to make it right.”

The Salt Lake City-based Mormon church is opposed to gay marriage and called on its members last year to give time and money to the campaign to pass California’s Proposition 8.

Jones reached out to GLAAD and other gay rights organizations for advice.

“I’ve thought a lot about the gay and lesbian kids who are surely all over the place in southern Utah, and maybe it’s gratuitous on my part, but they need to see this announcement in the paper,” he said. “When I was a kid … I would have loved to have seen a picture of two guys having their life together celebrated in the paper.”

In a follow-up e-mail to Welch, Jones, once a paperboy for The Spectrum, called the publisher’s decision “intolerance, plain and simple,” and said the paper has a duty not to shield readers from discomfort or disparate opinions.

“Your duty, as I see it, is exactly the opposite – to provide a neutral and fair forum for all of your readers to announce and celebrate their unions,” Jones wrote.

Meanwhile, Jones and Barrick have had their announcement accepted by The Salt Lake Tribune, owned by MediaNews Group Inc.

The Great Nationwide Kiss-In, an event created in response to a spate of anti-gay incidents that arose out of gay men being publicly affectionate, takes place this Saturday, August 15th. Activists across the country have signed-on to take part, check out this Facebook action page for times and locations in your town.

And from the Kiss-In’s Facebook page:

Why, you ask? Why are you doing this?

After incidents in San Antonio, TX, El Paso, TX and Salt Lake City, UT – where different gay and lesbian couples were harassed or detained by law enforcement or other people for the simple act of kissing in a public place – we need to make a strong statement to everyone everywhere: kissing is not a bad thing, nor has it ever been. It’s not vulgar or inappropriate. It’s a sign of affection that is as old as time itself. And it’s a beautiful thing that we share with our loved ones every single day.
So, go out Saturday at 2 p.m. EST and kiss your sweetheart! Over 50 cities have come on board; see the site for details on yours.

Herbert took the oath of office at the Utah Capitol about an hour after the resignation of Huntsman.

Herbert had been serving as Huntsman’s lieutenant governor.

Huntsman is a moderate Republican who was the most popular governor in state history, winning re-election in November with a record 77 percent of the vote.

Huntsman led efforts to normalize the state’s notoriously quirky liquor laws, revamped the state’s tax code and fought to keep foreign nuclear waste out of the state while in office.

Earlier this year, Huntsman grabbed nationwide attention for saying he supported civil unions and that the national Republican Party needs to be more inclusive if it wants to come back from widespread losses and move beyond the borders of the Rocky Mountain west and the South.

Before being tapped by President Barack Obama as an ambassador, Huntsman had been considering seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2012.

For Huntsman, though, the offer of the ambassador job was one he said he couldn’t refuse. Huntsman, who counts an adopted daughter from China among his seven children, has long been interested in Asia.

He’s fluent in Mandarin Chinese, has led trade missions to China and served a mission for the Mormon church in Taiwan.

Huntsman is also a former ambassador to Singapore.

In testimony last month, Huntsman promised to pursue human rights issues and to encourage China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

While governor of Utah, Huntsman irked many within his own party for signing a regional cap-and-trade agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. In part to reduce energy consumption, Huntsman also made Utah the first state in the country to switch most of its executive branch employees to a four-day work week.

The need to limit global warming is one of the most striking differences between Huntsman and Herbert.

Herbert has openly questioned whether global warming exists, saying science on the issue is inconclusive.

Herbert also disagrees with Huntsman on the issue of civil unions. However, it’s unknown whether Herbert would support granting gay couples limited legal rights, such as the right to sue in the event of a wrongful death.

State Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, who is Herbert’s choice for lieutenant governor, sponsored a failed bill in 2005 that would have allowed unmarried adults to enter into legal contracts for property ownership and hospital visitation rights.

Bell is awaiting confirmation from the state Senate before being sworn in. That is expected to occur on Aug. 19.