1. The facts about Every Tribe Entertainment’s choice of Chad Allen
Every Tribe Entertainment chose a gay actor to play Nate Saint in the movie.
In an interview, he was asked if he had ever been in love. He said, “Yes, absolutely. I’ve loved deeply, in the romantic sense. I’m very proud of that.” The interviewer asked, “Not so long ago you had a big reputation around drugs and parties. Were you a circuit boy?” Allen responded, “No, I was a guy who loved to push everything to its limits. That included the use of drugs and alcohol to expand and heighten every emotion to its absolute extreme. I’ve experienced the rave scene, the underground New York and L.A. scenes, the circuit party scene among gay men—all of it. It’s a nice little label to give somebody, but what does it really tell you about them? Nothing. I’ve had beautiful, intense romantic relationships with women in my life. And in this period in my life I have beautiful, intense romantic relationships with men.” 1
I’ve been around evangelicalism enough to know that many will not be a bit concerned about this. After all, is homosexuality the worst sin in the world? Chad is not only gay, he flaunts his sexuality on the big screen. In an interview with InLA Magazine, he was asked about his first gay love scene in a movie. He responded, “I want beautiful, positive representations of gay male sexuality out there. So it was very important to the director, Ron Oliver, and me to make a really good sex scene that wasn't gratuitous or gross but was healthy, sexy, and beautiful.” 2
Every Tribe Entertainment chose a producer of gay films.
Chad Allen is co-producing a film called The Way Out, starring David Duchovny, about two old men who fall in love in an old folk’s home.3 He also started a company called Mythgarden. In August of 2005, he gave an interview to Scene magazine in which he expanded on Mythgarden’s plans. He said, “For television, we have a biography series of gay and lesbian heroes throughout history. We also have a wonderful series that takes classic fairy tales both familiar and lesser known and makes them gay. There's a fantastic book we optioned called Fairy Tales for Gay Men.”4
He further elaborated on his goals when he said, "There are so many good stories that want to be told, and we just want to make good movies with and for gay people," says Allen, who is going back into production with a new Donald Strachey mystery for Here TV in which he plays a gay detective. "We want to tell stories that highlight historical events and also illustrate what it really means to be gay." His agenda comes across pretty clear when he states in an interview with Out magazine that he hopes to use Mythgarden to show gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gendered people in a positive light.5
Every Tribe Entertainment chose a gay activist.
Not only is Allen a gay movie actor who also produces gay films, he is an activist for gay causes. According to Out magazine’s January 2006 article, Chad tours the country with gay outreach programs.6 In an April 23 interview, he was asked if he had been to many gay pride celebrations around the country. He replied, “I love it. Everyone gets so uptight about people marching down the street…I mean who cares, these people have been doing this before we could even talk about being openly gay and stuff. These people have pushed the community so (expletive) far forward, excuse my language that who cares about the shock.” 7
According to Advocate magazine in November of 2003, “He began pouring his energy and time into myriad causes, including the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which helps elect openly gay candidates nationwide, and the Trevor Project, which sponsors a toll-free, round-the-clock suicide hotline for GLBT teens.” 8
Every Tribe Entertainment chose a star who has appeared in plays that have degraded Christ and Christianity.
In 2001, Allen starred in a play, set in 1950’s Corpus Christi, Texas. The play is said to parallel the New Testament story of Jesus. The play features a hard-drinking gay man gay named Joshua. Joshua is the Christ-figure who is different because he is gay. He grows up in isolation and becomes an object of ridicule. He runs from the environment of the city and while traveling gathers about him a group of twelve disciples who cling to him because of his message of love and tolerance. Most of the twelve disciples bear the names of Christ's apostles.
According to a Gay Wired article in 2001, when asked how he became involved in the play, Allen said, “I had heard of the show and knew of its reputation before I read it. So I took it home and read it and when I read it, I found it to be an incredible play. It single-handedly seemed to give me back a concept of Christ and a concept of human divinity that I had long since lost.” 9
Here are excerpts from another interview:
DW: Corpus Christi is not a play without its share of detractors. What do you say to those who claim that the play is an attack on Christianity?
CA: “I view [Corpus Christi] as a deeply Christian play. I constantly find myself reminding people that Jesus Christ is not a character in this play. This is not written as a historical account or meant to be a historical account of Jesus Christ. What it does is it asks us all, ‘Can we see ourselves as Christ? Are we all capable of that same kind of relationship with God?'”
DW: What do you think is the single most important message of the play?
CA: “It’s one line in the play. It’s early on when God is talking to his son before Joshua comes to realize himself as the son of God and [God] whispers to him, ‘All men are divine.’ And he [Joshua] says, ‘What? I can’t hear you?’ And he [God] says, ‘All men are divine. That is the secret that you will teach them.’ [Then] Joshua says, ‘What if I don’t want to teach them?’ and God says, ‘You won’t be able to keep the secret.’ That’s the message of the piece as I see it. That we are all capable of the same kind of divine relationship with God that Joshua comes to find.” 10
However, Corpus Christi is not the only anti-Christian production that Allen has been involved in. He starred in a production entitled “Save Me” which is about a young man who goes to an organization designed to help gays come out of the gay lifestyle. While at the treatment center, he falls in love with a male reporter. In explaining the production to The Advocate magazine on November 25, 2003, Chad said, “[It's] about the "ex-gay" movement. I read the script and at the end I was crying, because I thought it was the best love story between two guys that I'd ever read. Simultaneously, it explores this ex-gay movement from a place where it doesn't need to make the Christian right out to be the bad guys. I play a [gay] boy who's bottomed out in his life. His family takes him to [an ex-gay ministry], and he genuinely wants to give it a try. In the meantime, Robert Gant is this reporter who goes undercover [into the same ex-gay ministry] to get the scoop, and he and I fall in love. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.” 11
Every Tribe Entertainment chose an actor who has argued publicly (with an evangelical pastor) for the rights to same-sex marriage and gay adoption.
"All men are divine."
Off the subject, maybe, but this isn't Christian doctrine. Mormon maybe, New Age, Wicca perhaps, but not Scriptural.
Chad's gay....Big deal....he's an actor playing a part.
I saw the movie last night and he was very moving in the role. The whole theatre was sobbing, the movie is emotionally draining, and a beautiful story about self sacrifice and the power of love.