THE BELL CURVE:Robin Voss and the Sundance entry

Two years and a couple of months ago, in this space, I followed the adventures of Newport Beach native Robin Voss in seeking to spread the enlightenment she found in a program sponsored by St. Mark Presbyterian Church called “What the Bible Says About Homosexuality — a Journey Into the Heart of God.” She attended with a gay friend expecting the familiar religious dogma that might be more accurately subtitled Seven Reasons Why Homosexuality Is Bad. Instead, she got a message so fresh to her and exciting, both historically and spiritually, that she was instantly and profoundly moved to seek some means of getting it to a greater audience than the 50 people who attended at St. Mark.

Voss thinks big. Since nothing was impossible at that stage, she decided film would be the best means of reaching a lot of people — either TV or big screen.

She wasn’t totally off the plantation. She had worked in the marketing world for many years, as well as on TV commercials and in community theater, which qualified her for filmmaking about as well as an accountant or a plumber. But she also had spectacularly high determination and imagination and a powerful sense of mission.

What was the message that so intrigued her? That the Bible has long been used as a justification for discrimination — as it is now being used to demonize homosexuality. And that this attitude grows out of a literal interpretation of the Bible. And, most important, that there is growing dissatisfaction all over the world with the factions that are taking over government and churches and telling people how to think instead of giving them the information to start a dialogue and reach their own conclusions. And that the time is indubitably right for sending this message because more and more people are ready to listen.

So for four years, with this battle flag planted firmly, Voss has set about seeking funds to build on the money she and fellow producer Bob Greenbaum contributed to underwrite the project and selecting a filmmaking team that mirrors her dedication to the mission.

And, by God, she did it. As you read this, she will be on her way to Utah to the Sundance Festival. She won’t be there as an envious visitor. She’ll be there as a participant, contesting for a distributor that will send “For the Bible Tells Me So” to the millions of people Voss dreamed about that first night at St. Mark.

The arithmetic is mindblowing. A total of 856 feature-length documentary films were submitted to the Sundance directors, of which just 16 were chosen to be seen in the competition. The film Voss envisioned almost four years ago is one of that elite group. It will follow five disparate American families that are dealing with various issues of homosexuality. It will be screened next Sunday, and Voss and her entire production team — led by director Daniel Karslake, who has a winner in his first effort at a feature-length documentary — will be there to meet with interested buyers.

And you and I may well be seeing it in the months ahead. Before she got away to Sundance, Voss told me about her hopes for the film.

First, of course, is the hope that a major studio or TV network will pick it up and showcase it to millions of viewers. That’s when the collateral hopes kick in, the hopes that have driven her all these months and years.

“The most compelling thing to me about that first seminar at St. Mark,” she said, “was how open people were to the message. And that has been true throughout our work on this film. We wrote it for the movable middle, for the growing number of people with questions who haven’t closed their hearts and lives to a dialogue on the Scriptures that have always been a stumbling block to understanding.

“When we talk about issues that polarize us, it eliminates understanding. We want to encourage understanding by creating a national conversation on issues that start with a literal interpretation of the Bible. I really hope that’s what this film will do. We’re not telling people what they are thinking is either right or wrong. Only that there is a need to know and understand if their own religion starts by marginalizing whole groups of people. The time has come for asking such questions and starting such a dialogue.”

Perhaps a half-dozen times in the 20 years we were neighbors — well, almost neighbors — John Crean appeared unexpected and unannounced at the door to my office behind my house with something he wanted to show me. A map he had drawn, a clipping, a picture. He would sit down, chat for a half an hour, then disappear for another two, three or five years.

The subjects of his discourse and his views were never predictable, delightfully surprising and delivered with a kind of bucolic charm. I always wished they might have happened more often. He was a great asset to the neighborhood, the community and the world. He will be sorely missed.