by Shaun Knittel - SGN Staff Writer

Inlaws & Outlaws screenings
February 5, 8 PM
Gay City Health Project;
February 6, 2:15 PM
MCC Seattle

During Freedom to Marry Week, February 5-15, local places of worship, LGBT education and support service centers, and local universities will be offering free screenings of Inlaws & Outlaws, a local documentary about love and relationships, with one goal: not to preach, but to raise the quality of dialogue around marriage equality.

Drew Emery, the film's creator and director, will appear at one screening per evening for a post-film question-and-answer discussion. "The film has been used for the last two years by community organizations across the country," Emery told SGN. "Inlaws & Outlaws illustrates that love is a human thing, not a Gay or straight thing. Love is something that we have in common as opposed to something that divides us."

Filmed in Seattle in 2004, Inlaws & Outlaws weaves together true stories of couples and singles, Gay and straight, to celebrate what Emery says we all have in common - we love.

At the top of the film, you meet real people one on one, and it is unknown who's Gay or straight, and who is with whom.

With candor, good humor, a great soundtrack and real hearts, the documentary gets past all the rhetoric to explore commonality. "We love. We lose. We all want to belong," Emery told SGN.

"We all start from a society where love is very segregated," he said. "We grow up in a world where Gay relationships are not talked about, and if they are, they are talked about as an 'other.' But there is so much variety when you approach the subject realistically. Not everyone wants to marry, but we all do want love in our lives. Until we have marriage equality, we are living in a divided society."

Emery says the film garners positive responses because the audience can relate to the people in the film. "It doesn't matter if you are Gay or straight, you can find someone you identify with," he said.

Inlaws & Outlaws covers the full ecosystem of love and relationships, according to Emery. "We have really great civil rights organizations doing the necessary work in the legislature," he said, "but we are never going to get anywhere unless we do community education. The most vital aspect of that is our visibility. We have to tell our stories as LGBT people. That is the thrust of this film, and why I am continuing to promote it - so our stories continue to get told."

For more information on the film, visit www.inlawsandoutlawsfilm.com.

At each of the screenings, film promoters will be on hand to sell DVD copies of the film. Emery says that half of all proceeds will go to the organizations that hold a screening or organizations that concentrate on social justice work.

Freedom to Marry Week screenings of Inlaws & Outlaws begin February 5 at 8 p.m. at Gay City Health Project, 511 E. Pike St. The following afternoon, Metropolitan Community Church Seattle will show the film at 2:15 p.m. at Temple de Hirsch Sinai, 1441 16th Ave. (between E. Union and E. Pike Sts.) For a complete list of locations and times, go to www.inlawsandoutlawsfilm.com/news/freedom_to_marry.php.

Freedom to Marry Week, established by Freedom to Marry, a national educational and advocacy non-profit at the forefront of the fight for full marriage equality in the U.S., is now in its 13th year.

"Every year, right around Valentine's Day, people across the country celebrate Freedom to Marry Week in order to share our stories, reflect on the values of equality and love," the organization posted on their website, "while also engaging our neighbors in the movement for equality and fairness."

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