Seth Petersen and Bruce Davison butt heads in the hot indie film Hate Crime but it's all for the sake of gay rights. Do you know about IDAHO?

By Greg Archer

Gary, Billy and James don't know a damn thing about the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). They can't. They're dead.

But then again, so is 22-year-old Sean Ethan Owen, who was shot twice in the head in North Carolina, then left to drown in a river by three young men he met in a gay chat room … and 15-year-old Sakia Gunn, who was stabbed to death at a bus stop by a 29-year-old man after she nixed his pick-up attempts and told him she was a lesbian … and 17-year-old Gwen Araujo, who was beaten, tied up and strangled to death by four men after they discovered she was transgender.

There are many others. People like Philip Walsted, Aaron Webster, Danny Lee Overstreet, Winfield Mowder, Matthew Sheppard—all the victims of hate crimes. They're but a handful of the souls that will hopefully be remembered on Wednesday, May 17, the day IDAHO officially becomes known as being something more than just the state loaded with potatoes. It's the same day the indie film Hate Crime hits L.A. hoping to spread some illumination on IDAHO and a topic most people hate to talk about: Homophobia.

IDAHO and Hate Crime are, actually, the perfect bedfellows. They just happened to have met on a blind date with a curious timeline. The former is the brainchild of 31-year-old French professor Louis-Georges Tin, who had an epiphany to create an “international” day nixing hate for gays after publishing the Dictionary of Homophobia in 2003. The latter is the bold freshman outing of indie filmmaker Tommy Stovall, who struggled to bring the gay thriller about a hate crime and its unpredictable emotional aftermath to theaters.

Both ventures picked up steam last year.

IDAHO turned heads overseas, where it was, among other things, endorsed by the European Parliament. It generated enough buzz to launch an official resolution this year condemning homophobia and also send Russia into its first Gay Pride fest on May 27, the same day Stovall's film screens there.

As for Hate Crime, it became known as “the indie film that could” after collecting film fest honors around the country, and wowing audiences with a surprise ending that kept people chatting long after they had left the theater. A steady-paced drama with tragic consequences that deepen from frame to frame, the story chronicles the seemingly perfect life of a gay couple (Seth Peterson and Brian J. Smith). Their life isn't quite bliss–relationship issues they’ve got–but there is no doubt the pair love each other. Yet, their union only infuriates their new neighbor (Chad Donella), who snickers every time he spots the two showing affection for each other. The bigger problem: The neighbor's pop is the town's über conservative pastor, played to intense, gripping ends by Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion, X-Men). When one of the lovers is brutally beaten, the film merges into thriller territory as the other lover attempts to find justice—and redemption—even if it means taking the law into his own shaken hands.

IDAHO and Hate Crime bumped creative heads recently after Stovall and producer Ebony Tay, who also composed the film's soundtrack, began raising money for anti-violence projects in the cities the movie screened in. Tay would perform her single “Jesus By 45,” and other material off the film's soundtrack, while the names of hate crime victims were read aloud before the film rolled. At some point, Stovall, an avid researcher on hate crimes, stumbled upon news of the overseas phenom known as IDAHO and how it was about to celebrate its second year. But it left the Hate Crime team scratching their heads. Did America even know about IDAHO?

“To be honest I didn't know anything about it,” admits Seth Petersen, who plays love-torn Robbie in Hate Crime. “[Tommy and Ebony] mentioned they were going to be giving money to charities that help victims of violent crimes–some straight, some gay—and I thought it was a really amazing thing. I learned about IDAHO through this film. I was always really proud of the film, but this was something on a whole other level. For me, it really spoke volumes. A lot of producers and directors just want to sell their movie and once they do, they're like, 'OK, good it's over.' And that's what they did, they did sell the film, but afterward, they were like, 'OK, great, what else can we do?' I was blown away by it.”

Davison, who was initially attracted to the script because he felt it provoked thought, chose to take on the role as the film's anti-hero—the right-wing, homo-hating evangelical Pastor Boyd—to make a point.

“I thought it was something people could talk about it–a subject they can look at with fresh eyes,” Davison notes. “What really attracted me to the film was the sermon scene. So often we want to find the bad guy, and my character here is, but at the same time, the sermon is really wonderful because it gets to the heart and essence of what Christianity really is and how it’s been bastardized for political gain, for gain of power. There's always been a struggle between love and control—in any religion–and it's interesting and thought-provoking to see it put in a film that way.”

It's also controversial. “Jesus by 45” has been banned on all Christian radio. During a recent Hate Crime screening in Dallas, Tay noted that a Christian group attempted to prevent people outside the theater from attending. Meanwhile, a confederate Christian group has, according to Tay, sent a flurry of hate mail.

Beyond Pastor Boyd's aggressive ramblings in the film, others have been concerned that the movie's surprise twist ending—how Petersen's character seeks justice on his own—sends the wrong message to the heterosexual community.

“I find that so interesting,” Petersen says of the brouhaha, “because in a lot of movies that you see people go to these extremes. I have found that straight audiences and gay audiences don't always feel the same about the Hate Crime ending. I mean, you never think twice in a movie like Man of Fire, where he does unspeakable acts of violence against multiple people to get his ends to meet. Does the straight moviegoer react and say, 'Well what are we saying?' No, because it's entertainment. It's kind of ironic with this, because, the heterosexual community has mostly responded pretty favorably. I'm not advocating anybody go out there and do anything violent at all. What am I saying is, 'Let's talk about it, let's think about. What happens when you get pushed to the edge, pushed to this point and nobody cares and nobody is going to do anything?' Let's explore it a little bit.”

Hate Crime premieres at a special benefit screening at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 17, at Laemmle's Sunset 5. The Hate Crime cast and crew will be in attendance. Tickets are $15. The screening benefits IDADO and Violence Intervention Program (VIP). Call (323) 848-3500 for more information or visit www.idahomophobia.org.