When the Church Fails Small-Town Queer People, Who Steps Up?

THIS YEAR’S TRIBECA Film Festival featured an intriguing pair of documentaries about gay life in small towns, one released 20 years ago and one brand-new. Together the two of them offer unexpected vistas of hope and community.

The 2006 documentary Small Town Gay Bar (available for free on YouTube) follows the story of several gay bars in and around Shannon, Miss., near Elvis Presley’s hometown. It’s immediately clear that, for queer residents in this town of less than 1,500, the gay bars provide a shelter and a lifeline in an otherwise bleak and often scary existence. “You walk in and you walk into family,” says one patron. “If there wasn’t a gay bar there wouldn’t be any kind of community,” says another.