In 2007, Daniel Karslake’s documentary “For The Bible Tells Me So” was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It was an exploration of the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and how the religious right had used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community.
Karslake’s new film “For They Know Not What They Do” continues the conversation about the impact of religious belief on the lives of LGBTQ people. It challenges the far-right’s use of the Bible and the U.S. Constitution to fight against equality for LGBTQ citizens and takes on the horrors of reparative therapy.
Since 2015, when marriage equality became the law of the land, the backlash from the right has been overwhelming. “For They Know Not What They Do” examines the impact on four families that have been directly affected by the ongoing back-and-forth. 
The Porchers were ecstatic when their daughter Colleen was born. Collen was always a tomboy, but when she was in eighth grade she came to Coleen and Harold and asked, “Could you love me even if I were a boy?”
The couple who head the Báezte-Febo family were lifelong sweethearts from Barranquita, Puerto Rico before marrying. They moved to Florida for better work opportunities. Their son Victor moved back to Puerto Rico to live with his grandmother. When she found out that he was gay, she banned him from her house and outed him to his parents. He was terrified about how his father would react.
Dave and Sally McBride and their three sons were the all-American family living in Wilmington, Delaware. Their oldest son told them he was gay. Then their youngest came out as a transgender woman who called herself Sarah. Sarah’s life became national news.
Linda and Rob Robertson are evangelical Christians who live in a suburb of Seattle, Washington. What happens to the Robertson family is easily the best part of the film. I might have even preferred if they were the sole family presented to us.
There’s nothing terribly new in “For They Know What They Do”, but what the Robertsons experience almost make this into a very worthy documentary, though not quite. Whether this is something worth seeing to you is probably dependent upon your politics.
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