For My Wife: The Making of an Activist for Marriage Equality

This stirring documentary reveals the story behind Charlene Strong’s journey to becoming a dynamic marriage equality activist after she is denied visitation of her partner, Kate Fleming, who lay dying in a Seattle hospital after a freak flash flood incident.

Told in episodic modules the film documents first, Strong’s personal story, chronicles her healing process, which included testifying before local and national legislatures for domestic partnerships rights only a month after Kate dies, and finally giving voice to LGBT partners committed to partnership protections and marriage equality.

A very emotional film, For My Wife is full of appearances and anecdotal evidence from (white, middle class) lesbians who have lost—or are in the process of losing—a partner, to illness, immigration laws, etc. Movement veterans (feminist Gloria Steinem, marriage equality leader Evan Wolfson, staffers of GLAAD) all make appearances and GLAAD, in particular, takes Strong under the organization’s wing to train her to be a powerful national spokesperson.

My Rating: 4.5 stars. Just for the emotional intensity itself, this is definitely a documentary to watch. It has played at just about every LGBT film festival in the country and won numerous awards, but will it change minds about same-same marriage among those who make policy? Well, probably yes for sympathetic fence-sitters such as President Obama who cited Strong’s testimony as influencing his decision to extend hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners, but not likely not among committed homophobes, and not for this anti-assimilationist queer movie reviewer. But, a moving and provocative film nevertheless.