Courgage Campaign video challenge asks for LGBT testimonies

When federal judges take office, they swear to uphold the Constitution impartially, “without respect to persons” according to their oath. But if you ask Oscar-winning Milk screenplay writer and LGBT activist Dustin Lance Black, “judges don’t live in a bubble.”

Historically, he said, the quickest way to create change is to “come out and tell your story;” to let as many as possible hear from someone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. So at a time in history when same-sex marriage is finally working through U.S. courts – and judges and policymakers are making decisions that will have extraordinary impact on everyday lives – it’s time to get the message out, Black said.

Black is working with Rick Jacobs and the Courage Campaign to collect and release stories from LGBT people across the United States, who have lived and survived the issues that the rest of the country knows only as “politics.” The campaign is called “Testimony: Take a Stand,” and has collected more than 1,000 testimonies from people across the country.

Videos collected before the deadline – now extended through July 4 – will be shared unedited on the campaign’s website and will be spread with the help of social media to their communities. Then, by the end of this summer, along with a professional film crew, Black will fly to the hometowns of a selected number of participants, turning their testimonies into TV public service announcements for mainstream audiences in their communities and regions.

The stories range from areas like Bedford, Texas, to Colorado Springs. Black said he hopes they are a diverse and community-driven look at the lives of lesbians and gays.

“We need to tell our story better with the Latino community and the black community,” he said.  “We need to let seniors know there are LGBT seniors. If they were all white men, I think we will have failed.”

Black said there is a special value in detailed, personal and heartfelt accounts in the personal testimonies. “In their specificity, they ring universal,” he said.

But he didn’t have any preconditions for the kind of testimony he wanted.

“I hoped to be surprised,” he said.  “Part of the goal is to discover things we don’t know yet or haven’t heard yet. You’re going to see that we’re every kind of person, and defy the stereotypes when taken as a whole.”

No fewer than three of the submissions will be turned into public service announcements for television broadcasting.

Lauren Fortmiller, a Lakewood resident, submitted two videos to the challenge.

In 2001, Fortmiller was elected mayor of the town of Sag Harbor, New York, located on the Eastern tip of Long Island. As mayor, she had authority through the state of New York to marry eligible couples – which became the topic for one of her submissions.

“I married citizens from Russia, Sweden, France and Mexico. Their marriages are valid around the world,” she said. “But then a gay couple came to me, and I couldn’t do it.”

That’s because same-sex marriage was illegal in New York.

Fortmiller did not run for re-election when her term ended in 2003. She is now married by the state of California to her partner, Pamela Thiele, and in 2007 they made their home together in Lakewood.

Her second video testimony tells the story of being sexually assaulted by a group of teenage boys when she was only eight-years-old.

In the video, Fortmiller reveals memories of the painful incident.

“I was wearing jeans,” she said.  “That’s not remarkable today, but it was 1955. Girls had to wear dresses and skirts and I had special permission to wear jeans.”

The group of five boys, seeing her from a distance, thought she was an effeminate boy with long hair and a girl’s bike. They tackled her, calling her a “sissy.”

When they pulled off her pants, they discovered she was female and raped her for being a “dyke.”

Fortmiller said she kept that story to herself for decades – at only eight-years old, she didn’t know what rape was, didn’t have a way to explain what happened and when she got home her mother was angry that her pants were wet. She kept it to herself, so the boys were never identified or caught. She only first told the story a couple years ago, in front of a congregation at Christ Church Methodist in Denver – and it is now a video as part of the Courage Campaign’s archive of LGBT testimonies.

It’s not a story that would be easy for anyone to tell, but Fortmiller said she’s comfortable speaking publicly, and decided to tell it because the world needs to hear stories from LGBT people and know what they have survived.

“It’s much more important that people speak out,” Fortmiller said. “As Harvey Milk said, ‘you gotta give em’ hope.’”

Black said it was that type of storytelling that inspired the challenge.

“Just say what it is you know to be true, as if you were testifying before your congregation,” he said.

“It’s very brave of people to share,” he continued. “I really appreciate the hundreds who have shared right now, it means a lot.”