Danny Watts said his company would probably fire him if he kissed the one he loves at its annual Christmas party.
Courts also refuse to allow Watts, a 39-year-old Baton Rouge industrial real estate salesman and University alumnus, to marry or even have sex in the privacy of his own bedroom.
Though Watts has been an upstanding Baton Rouge and Louisiana citizen since he arrived for college, he is frustrated by living in a place that denies him of his civil rights – rights he hopes to eventually regain after the release of his first documentary.
“A Vested Citizen” is Watts’ locally produced film that documents the civil injustices gays face regarding their social and legal status.
“[The discrimination against gays] is a constitutional issue,” Watts said. “We are not whining, complaining or showing the horrors gays face. But for a straight person to understand what gays face, he must begin to realized that for me to simply hold hands with my partner is not viable.”
People will look differently at Watts holding his partner’s hand than a straight couple holding hands. Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community are restricted for being different in a way no other group of “different” individuals is, he said.
“Why is the constitution different for me than it is for you?” Watts asked. “People for so long discriminated against blacks because they just thought, ‘Well they are not supposed to have those rights,’ because they didn’t want to change.”
Watts’s film attempts to document these constitutional injustices in a way he said many of his straight friends never had thought of. “A Vested Citizen” began about nine months ago with something Watts’s friend Blake Palmintier, a 2001 University film graduate who is straight, said.
“I don’t see why gay people have to throw it in your face, kiss in public and hold hands in public,” Palmintier said.
Watts realized that although Palmintier did not mind him being gay, he could not understand what life is like for gay men in Baton Rouge or the United States.
Watts documents his life to explain why living in conservative Baton Rouge is difficult. For example, he must always restrict himself from acting out his sexuality.
“There are places and events where we are free to do as we want and no one stares at us or throws things at us,” he said. “But if I do that in a grocery story, I could get punched in the nose.”
Watts and Palmintier, who star in the documentary, point out the many instances when members of the LGBT community said they are afraid to show affection and where heterosexuals said they do not want to see that affection.
Marisa Frye, University Spectrum Alliance co-chair, said she and other Spectrum members have been in many of the instances the two speak about in the documentary.
“There is definitely pressure to not express your sexuality when it’s anything other than heterosexuality,” Frye said.
In addition, Frye is aware that she too probably will not be allowed to enter into a civil union like her heterosexual friends.
Watts said, “There is something tragically wrong with a country that calls itself free loving but doesn’t give everyone the same rights.”
In the documentary, Watts and Palmintier interview both Baton Rouge and Louisiana elected officials, religious leaders and average citizens to understand why legal and social restrictions against gays exist.
The two hope the documentary will not only cause lawmakers to rethink their legislation, but also have the average person identify with Palmintier through his personal growth. They want to spark rational debate.
“If we can convey in our film what happened with Blake and that happens with other straight people, our mission is accomplished,” Watts said. “All it takes is for people to open their eyes.”
Watts and Palmintier hope to have the documentary finished and ready for release to a national audience by fall 2004.
Although an 11-minute film short they released at Oculus Art Gallery on Friday is complete, they must now raise the necessary funds to send their short and proposals to production companies and cable networks.
The two hope a network such as Showtime or the Sundance Channel will want to fund the rest of their work and air the documentary to the entire nation.
Though Frye is not sure if she feels as strongly about changing the way laws are written as Watts, she looks forward to both a local and national release.
“Anybody who is going to watch the documentary is going to learn something from it,” she said.