When I found out I’d be screening a film with a gay man as the protagonist, I was both apprehensive and curious. I’ve seen too many films where a leading gay character has to die or suffer some miserable fate as a necessary part of the story’s narrative (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, A SINGLE MAN). However, as a gay man myself, I was curious about gay life in eastern Europe, particularly in a non-urban setting. It didn’t hurt that the film was a 2010 GLAAD award nominee for best film.

THE COUNTRY TEACHER, directed by Bohdan Slama, presents a realistic portrayal of a gay man in conflict that is refreshingly free of Hollywood’s more annoying stereotypes. The movie tells the story of Petr (nicely underplayed by Pavel Liska), a closeted prep-school teacher from Prague who comes to a bucolic Czech village to instruct children in the natural sciences. In an early lesson he advises prophetically, “If we don’t understand nature, we can’t understand ourselves.”

Shortly after his arrival, Petr is befriended by Marie (Zuzana Bydzovska), a local cow herder who lives with her teen son Lada (Ladislav Sidivy). While tutoring Lada in math, Petr finds himself attracted to the young man and embarks on a course of action that has traumatic consequences. It made me wonder, if Petr had been an out gay man, would he have had the problems he had? Is it possible to have a healthy romantic relationship if you still have at least one foot in the closet?

This provocative yet sensitive movie doesn’t flinch from showing Petr’s feelings for Lada. We also see that certain cultural touchstones for adulthood are more relaxed in this rural community. There is no adult censure when 17-year-old Lada is seen drinking hard liquor or smoking pot and there is acceptance of his sexually active relationship with a young woman. Does the film show that homosexuality is also acceptable? Well, to a certain extent, yes, but there is also a good deal of bewilderment, fear and ignorance.

Director Bohdan Slama (LIKE HAPPINESS, THE WILD BEES) bravely declines to portray Petr as criminally disturbed and it was great to see that Petr’s parents seemed more concerned about his loneliness than his sexual orientation. While Petr may have felt the need to be alone when he fled city life, he soon discovers that isolation is not the answer. As he stumbles awkwardly toward making bona fide human connections, he discovers they can be found in unanticipated places.

As for Marie’s reaction to Petr’s encounter with her son, Zuzana Bydzovska’s beautifully layered performance shows us that a cow herder can have a pretty sophisticated understanding of human nature. In fact, Marie’s intuitive abilities regarding both Petr and Lada left me wondering whether she was the real “country teacher” here.

For nature lovers, there are two graphic scenes showing a cow giving birth on Marie’s farm. I leave the symbolism for others to discern. But if you’re in the least bit squeamish, you’ve been warned!

On the latest Global Pulse episode, host Erin Coker reviews global coverage of sexual abuses in the Catholic Church. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

It seems some Catholic commentators who refuse to criticize the Catholic Church are using the myth that homosexuality and pedophilia are one in the same. While researching the subject for this week’s “Global Pulse,” I expected to find outraged Catholics lashing out against the church’s handling of allegations of sexual abuses by priests. While I did find many Catholics who were appalled by these crimes and how the church has often hidden them, I also found former Senator Rick Santorum and the advocacy group The Catholic League, who have taken a different route. Instead of seeing the crisis as an opportunity to root out elements of abuse in their church, they have used the scandal in an effort to cynically link pedophilia and homosexuality.

Back in 2002, in an article for the website catholic.org, Santorum admitted his dismay at the long string of sexual abuses, but saw it as a reflection of the liberal corruption of society. “It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning ‘private’ moral matters such as alternative lifestyles.” There should be no confusion as to what Santorum means when he says “alternative lifestyles." Somehow, the senator reasoned that homosexuality was the primary motivating force in pedophilia.  As an argument, it benefited his agenda in two ways. By equating homosexuality with pedophilia he was able to demonize all homosexuals, a group he clearly sees as abhorrent. More importantly, by using this argument he was able to portray the priests not as perpetrators of heinous crimes but as victims of a society gone wild. After all, he stated, “Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected.”

More recently, the Catholic League, a far-right advocacy group, took up the theme. The group recently took out an ad in the New York Times responding to an earlier Times article stating that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) helped cover up the abuse of over two hundred deaf boys by a priest in Wisconsin. The League ad countered the Times article by saying, “The Times continues to editorialize about the ‘pedophilia crisis,’ when all along it's been a homosexual crisis,” and justified its denial of pedophilia by stating, “most of the victims were post pubescent.”

So let me get this straight. Because some of the abuse victims were 13 or 15, instead of 7 or 9, it’s not pedophilia? Of course it is…but are pedophiles gay? According to one of the few studies that has attempted to understand the sexual orientation of pedophiles, the answer is, mostly no. “…child molesters cannot be meaningfully described as homosexuals, heterosexuals, or bisexuals…because they are not really capable of a relationship with an adult man or woman. Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age.”
 
In any case, the hetero-homo debate is meaningless in this context. Instead of focusing on the mental illness that is pedophilia, commentators like Rick Santorum of the Catholic League are confusing the issue by framing it in terms of homosexuality. With this kind of denial and blame shifting, the chances of constructive action are diminished. I guess we should expect they will continue to make excuses for church officials, lash out at legitimate media attention, and blame homosexuality (not pedophilia and church secrecy) as the root of the problem.

Gay sex in Iran can mean a government paid sex change. A rocky, and sometimes violent road in the struggle for justice and tolerance in Iran, East Europe, India and Singapore.

 
- Global Pulse -