focus on this family

Grand Rapids is far from the idyll that first night promises. Stillman’s family, living nearby, pointedly shuns the “sinners”. Housecleaners and gardeners walk out mid-job, when they realize they’re working for homosexuals. Neighbor children are forbidden to visit the home. The local school is supportive, and Greg’s liberal church is a refuge; but church members often hide their church affiliation from the larger community, for fear of discrimination or worse.

Greg had anticipated that the family would ‘lead Grand Rapid’s gay pride parade’, and help turn around the prevailing culture of discrimination; but there is no Grand Rapids gay pride parade. Instead, his children are taunted on the playground about their two dads. In public, people stare at them and offer religious literature to “set them straight”. Ten months after the family moves to Grand Rapids, Greg accepts a call to a church in Reno.

Their second move, to Reno, erases any lingering doubts in the kids’ minds – this family really is forever. Greg and Stillman find a one-acre ranch under the blue Nevada sky and crowd three horses, three pigs and a hog, three dogs, a cat, and thirty chickens into the dusty corrals. The boys learn to ride and help Stillman care for the animals.

But all those mouths are expensive to feed – over $500 a month for the horses alone – and Greg and Stillman experience the tensions of a one income family, when the one income isn’t quite enough, as well as the disruptions of romantic bliss that come from having five young children. At one point Greg admonishes Stillman for not accomplishing more around the house while the boys are in school. Stillman alternates between defending himself - testily pointing out that he has only two hours a day free from the boys - and directing pointed looks at the camera, bringing the audience into the dispute. It’s the squabble of a solid partnership under stress, the type of conversation struggling parents everywhere will recognize.

In Reno the boys are floundering and unengaged in school. Allen breaks into a neighbor’s house with an axe. Arthur repeats sixth grade. In Grand Rapids, at least the four African-Amrican boys blended in on the playgrounds, but in Reno they are exotic and frightening to potential playmates. The final straw comes when the boys run home to safety after some black workers appear at the house down the street. And so Greg puts himself back in the search for another church in another place – one where his family won’t stick out like a sore thumb.

As the film ends, Greg has been called to a San Francisco church, and the family has moved yet again. Stillman exults: We’re here, we’re queer, we’re in the hundreds, if not the thousands, and nobody cares!!

Despite the widespread acceptance offered in San Francisco, this family will surely face challenges in the coming years. Boys who are born with addictions often have psychological problems in adolescence and serious issues with drugs. Despite the fathers’ best efforts, it remains to be seen whether the extensive early hurts can be mended. While a heated debate about adoption rights and marriage equality continues to rage, Preacher’s Sons offers evidence of some real changes in these boys’ lives. They have hope, where none existed. They have love; and they are learning what that word means.