Brett Mathews
Brett Mathews, First Lieutenant, Nuclear Missileer, U.S. Air Force, 1996-1998
I am still living in Los Angeles, recovering from injuries I received in a car accident in July of 2000. I'm working as a handyman, and doing pretty well. I was hoping that the film would bring me and my family closer together, and that we would be able to find common ground through our participation in it. I'm sorry to say that it kind of backfired. When they backed out, it kind of separated us even further. I still speak to my family sporadically, but their overall views of homosexuality have not changed.
I am getting over the hurt and the disappointment here to a certain extent, and have made a lot of new friends and met people in a support group to kind of fill the gap over the last three years. I am not active in church at the moment, so I try to foster some spirituality, and I always try to keep my special relationship with God.
The film had its world premiere screening at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, which is in Park City, Utah, 50 miles away from my parents' place, and also close to the headquarters of the LDS Church. When the film screened there, one of the newspapers carried a front-page article about the film, with a large photo of me in my uniform. It was a scary thing to go home to Utah and have everyone know so much about me. I was afraid the Church would ask to respond in kind, or possibly excommunicate me. They didn't do anything, though. I continue to have my membership in the Church, although I am not active.
No one in my immediate or extended family has seen the film. Arthur Dong even offered to fly me and him back to Salt Lake City one more time, if they would allow him to film some kind of comments after they'd seen it, and they declined.
After the accident, I had to cut back on my outreach and community speaking engagements, but I did get to travel with the film a little bit. It was extremely rewarding doing the question and answer sessions and getting the love and support of so many people. Overall the response to the film has been very rewarding. One of the screenings that took place down in SLC itself, hundreds of people waited out in a snowstorm for tickets, and they had to turn away 500 people, and the majority of those people waited there until after it was over to show their support. That was overwhelming and incredible.