The Methodist minister who found himself at the center of a church-wide controversy for presiding over his son's marriage to another man is to be the subject of a new documentary.
Rev. Frank Schaefer, who was stripped of his credentials as a minister in the United Methodist Church last December, will be the subject of An Act of Love. Schaefer, who is from a small Pennsylvania town, is now an outspoken activist for LGBT people and is traveling the nation preaching.
One of the film's producers is Kate Logan, director-producer of Kidnapped for Christ, a 2013 documentary about a Christian reform school to which young people, including LGBT teens, have been sent against their will. It won the audience award for best documentary at this year's Slamdance Film Festival. The director of An Act of Love is Scott Sheppard, himself the son of a Methodist minister. He is also a producer and editor on the film.
Actress Pauley Perrette, who appears on the CBS show NCIS, recently joined the project as an executive producer, and she is helping to raise money via crowdsourcing site Kickstarter. Perrette is a member of the Methodist Church and says Schaefer's story is "one that needs to be told."
"To anyone in the LGBT community, the most important thing is that no one convinces them they don't have a right to God and a right to God's love," she said in a press release.
Watch a trailer for the film below.
An Act of Love - Kickstarter Trailer 2 from Scott Sheppard on Vimeo.
