Heterosexism In The Film 'For The Bible Tells Me So'

This week Dawn has learned that institutionalized heterosexism is a term used to indicate the often-unintentional obliviousness to the needs and concerns and even the very existence of non-heterosexual members of society. (Reading Packet pg. 149). Examples of heterosexism at the macro level would include the continuing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “policy involving military personnel; widespread lack of legal protection and discrimination in employment, housing, and services; including hostility to same sex partnerships.
She also discovered that institutionalized heterosexism was very apparent in the film “For the Bible Tells Me So”? In the film, several families expressed their concerns regarding the sexual preference of their children. Some parents of these children were accepting and some were not. For instance, Jake Reitan for Minnesota came from a long line of Lutheran Pastors. When Jake came out of the “closet”, some of the locals threw a brick through a car’s windshield and wrote “fag” in chalk outside his house. Or Mary Lou Wallner, a Christian fundamentalist who rejected her lesbian daughter. Mary Lou did not speak to her daughter for several years after exchanging a couple letters with her. Later in the film we learned that Mary Lou’s daughter committed suicide. Due to Mary Lou’s …show more content…
However, she feels that she is more of a spiritual person. Her opinion of homosexuality is that she doesn’t believe that there is anything wrong with same sex partners as she believes we cannot control who we love. She was disturbed by the fact that in the film “For the Bible Tells Me So”, Mary Lou Wallner’s religious beliefs made her disassociate with her daughter because of her daughter’s sexuality. Dawn cannot imagine herself disassociating herself from her own daughter due to her daughter’s sexual preference. Her daughter does not have a homosexuality preference, but if she did she would never love her any less than she does