Documentary records the heartache of gay children and fundamentalist Christian families

Kathleen Bremner, a soft-spoken Pentecostal grandmother who devotes much of her time to advocating the idea that those who have "become homosexual" can be "cured," sits in her San Diego living room, surrounded by dozens of framed photographs of her daughter Susan and now-grown grandson David. The irony of this quickly becomes clear: Both Susan and David are gay, and both rarely see Bremner, who lives engulfed by images of the family she no longer knows.

Three families and their stories are the heart of "Family Fundamentals," a wrenching documentary about the gay children of fundamentalist Christian families. What happens, writer/director Arthur Dong asks, when parents believe that their beloved children represent a sinful and destructive element in society?

In the case of the three families profiled, a sadly permanent schism occurs — people, related by blood and by love, simply stop communicating. Bremner remembers her shock when daughter Susan first told her that she was a lesbian: "I said, 'But, Susan, you're a Christian!' " Their relationship quickly deteriorated.

Bremner, and the people who attend her workshops, are adamant that good Christian folk can't be gay. (One support-group participant goes so far as to say, "There's no such thing as homosexuals, just heterosexuals with homosexual problems.") Meanwhile, Susan, from her East Coast home, fumes that her mother presumes to dictate a daughter's relationship with God. "Who made her the God police?" she asks.

Also profiled is Brian Bennett, a jovial former staffer to stridently anti-gay-rights Congressman Bob Dornan. Bennett and Dornan had a close father-son relationship for many years — until Bennett came out in 1997. They no longer speak.

But the most haunting story comes from Brett Mathews, a Mormon bishop's son from rural Erda, Utah. Dong's camera accompanied Mathews on a trip back home to Utah — his first visit in more than two years, after becoming estranged from his family upon coming out in 1999.

Mathews nervously packs, joking about his lack of fashion sense and his distinctly non-Mormon underwear, but there's fear in his eyes. And rightly so: Within a day of arriving, his parents change their minds about participating in the documentary, saying that they would only be part of a film that would denounce homosexuality. Later, after their son has sadly returned home, they call him and request that he attend a deprogramming seminar.

Filmed in tight close-up, Mathews' final speech to the camera, in which he tearfully hopes that his parents will never have to go through the kind of pain he is enduring, is a cry from the heart.

"Family Fundamentals," which feels almost too short at 75 minutes, is a moving and important film, in part due to Dong's careful refusal to condemn the parents for their actions. He doesn't mock them, Michael Moore-style, but simply shows us the results of their behavior: broken families and alienated children. It seems unlikely that Brett Mathews' parents will ever see this film, but their son, by bravely sharing his own anguish, will surely help many others.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com.