The Campaign

The Campaign follows the people behind California’s historic “No on 8″ campaign to defend same-sex marriage, interwoven with the national history of same-sex relationship recognition since the 1950s. It focuses on five characters — Alison, Holli, Richard, Anne and Claudia — as they labor tirelessly to defeat Proposition 8, sacrificing time with the families they are fighting to protect. The film positions their efforts within the context of shifting legal and political landscapes, from Anita Bryant’s “Save our Children,” to the invention of the word “Domestic Partner” in San Francisco, to Pat Buchanan’s declaration of a “culture war,” and to the wave of marriage bans that swept 41 states across the nation. The shocking passage of Prop 8 in seemingly LGBT-friendly California changed the landscape forever, both for the LGBT equality movement, and for the individual activists who dropped what they were doing and threw themselves into the largest social issue campaign the country has ever seen. The Campaign emerges as an unprecedented installment of LGBT social history and a signature documentary on one of the most pressing civil rights issues of our times.