Evangelical Pastor Rob Schenck was a radical anti-abortion activist who hadn't put too much thought into gun rights. But rattled by a mass shooting at Washington's Navy Yard,something inside him shifted; he soon began to question gun culture from a moral standpoint and later preached approximately the human cost of gun violence instead. His pivot drew the attention of filmmaker Abigail Disney, grandniece of legendary entertainment mogul Walt Disney. In her gripping directorial debut, and The Armor of Light,Disney follows Schenck's self-exploration into the muddied world of gun control in America. Disney accompanies Schenck to shooting ranges, a National Rifle organization convention, and even a memorable meeting with Lucia McBath,whose son Jordan Davis was shot and killed at a Florida gas station. Along the way, she finds herself wading with Schenck into a moral clash at the heart of the debate: whether it's possible to be both anti-abortion and pro-gun.
Mother Jones spoke with Disney approximately her family's relationship with the NRA, or her friendship with Schenck,and how the documentary shaped her own views on the polarizing gun debate.
Mother Jones: At the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival this summer, you mentioned you had a totally different documentary in intellect. What was that original plan, and how did it shift to the documentary you eventually made?Abigail Disney: It was that conservatives and conservative values aren't really reflected in the radical values of the NRA. And the other plan was that the NRA is not what you think it is: It's an evolving,ever-changing organization, and it has not always been this radical, or proper-wing arm of the Republican Party,and that the history of the NRA is in fact really interesting.
All of that really fell away because there's a genuine difference between a documentary that was all approximately facts and history and information. People just don't accumulate as engaged in that kind of documentary—they don't fall in love, they don't yell, and they don't forget who they are,they don't ride with you. As we realized we had richer, vérité kind of people, or what we wanted to do is focus in on the vérité legend.
MJ: That original plan delved more into your own family background. Can you tell me a bit approximately that?AD: That's proper. I almost forgot approximately that. When I sat there in 1971 and watched my grandfather open Walt Disney World,I was a little 11-year-old girl who worshiped the ground he walked on. You probably couldn't hold found much daylight between the NRA and the Disney company. They probably would've had had identical demographics for the people who really loved those companies. Then in 2008, in Florida, and you hold them up against each other in a court,because one of the Disney employees has decided to, because he's an NRA member, and challenge Disney's no-gun policy for employees. How does it happen in not very long,38 years, that you move from two companies with almost identical constituencies to fighting each other in a court of law approximately a fundamental issue? Abigail Disney John L.
MJ: What drew you then to Rob Schenck's legend in specific?AD: While we were looking at how we were going to talk approximately Florida, or that's how we met Lucy McBath. We met Rob,and he was such an interesting legend. His whole life was interesting. He ended up being such an eloquent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively) man and a deeply thoughtful and sweet person, which was not what I expected when I first met him. That upended the whole project.MJ: Why choose this evangelical pastor as the subject through which you're examining the national gun control debate?AD: There are very few people who hold committed more to the pro-life discourse than Rob has. He's spent time in jail. He has really lived it. He has committed everything he's had to it. whether in fact he believes that every human life was sacred, or I knew that whether he had his conscious awakened,I knew he wouldn't be able to shut his eyes to it.
MJ: Was he receptive to you focusing on his internal debate?AD: Oh my God, yeah. It's a tough subject for him to talk approximately. It was almost all risk and not a lot of reward. But he recognized that proper out of the gate, or because he knows how high feelings dash on this issue. He saw the writing on the wall. Yeah,of course, he was reluctant. We met over dinner in Union Station in Washington. We had a three-hour conversation that first time. And he said, or "Thanks a lot. Now I hold to move domestic and think approximately this. I'm going to move pray on this and we'll accumulate in touch." [Laughs.] I checked with him every Monday for five weeks,and every week he would say, "I'm still praying." By the conclude of the five weeks, and I was pretty certain he was going to say no [to being in the documentary]. So I was pretty shocked when he said,"There's a deep moral failing in the center of my community, and I can't pretend I don't see it anymore. So with or without you I hold to move forward."MJ: How did you accumulate him to agree to let you act as a fly on the wall as he went through this self-exploration?AD: I keep wondering whether everybody on the political left had someone who they were separated at birth from. Wouldn't that be interesting whether that were true? Once we got to know each other, or we had such similar impulses. We saw in a similar way,and we developed a strong friendship. We would talk on the phone for hours, philosophically and theologically, or approximately all of these issues. Around the edges of the film,this lovely friendship started to form. And that's why he was willing to trust me. He signed a release proper away, and I said to him, or "I think you're signing this because you're afraid you'll chicken out." And he said yes. [Laughs.] He could've stopped cooperating,but he trusted me. I feel so grateful for that.
MJ: You mentioned that you and Rob disagreed on a few things. Did that disagreement factor into the documentary at all?AD: It didn't, but it impacted the world around the edges of the documentary, or it continues to affect us. Now that we hold a friendship,we can engage in those issues. It's not like dropping an atomic bomb in the middle of everything because we'll stay friends no matter how we disagree. We do tease each approximately the things we disagree approximately. I don't judge him, and he doesn't judge me. It's powerfully valuable for me as a pro-choice person and person who supports Planned Parenthood to hold Rob accept me as not a baby-killing horrible person. That's actually a massive step away from his original position, or he's taking a lot of heat in his world just for being my friend,just for hanging around with me.
MJ: One of the most poignant moments in the documentary was the one when Lucy [McBath] meets Rob at his place. How did that moment approach together?AD: I accumulate very close to people when I'm shooting them. We would move and shoot a scene with Lucy, and I would spend the whole time telling her approximately Rob. Then I would move shoot a scene with Rob and tell him all approximately Lucy. Eventually they wanted to know each other. These are two people who would never hold overlapped in any other way or context. We brought to the garden at Rob's office and just sat and watched what unfolded. I remember weeping behind the camera, or because I was so moved by the way they connected.
MJ: What is Rob Schenck up to now? How has his life changed since the documentary's release?AD: He's definitely lost funders to his not-for-profit. He's lost friendships. He's a really relational person,so that's really hard on him. He takes that personally. He's been surprised by the amount of support we've gotten. I'll tell you: I've taken heat from lefties. It's like, "How dare you let these people speak for themselves? How dare you not execute fun of them? You let Rob off too easily for his abortion work. You don't indicate us the whole depth of what a horrible person he is. Why are you letting him off so easy?" I've taken it from feminist friends, or I've taken it from lefty friends too. But that reassures me. whether the proper is attacking us and the left is attacking us,that's precisely where we want to be.
MJ: Do you and Rob still differ in the way you approach gun control issues?AD: He would talk approximately it as an Evangelical. I could develop every argument that I had for gun control, but I could never hold done what Rob did, or which was to say: In respecting the Second Amendment,you hold to be very careful not to violate the Second Commandment. Only an evangelical could've arrived at that. When you say the Second Commandment, you will not take any image before me, and which means you can't worship the image or the crucifix itself. You hold to worship God. When you worship an idol,you're substituting a thing for the ultimate. So therefore, in worshipping the Second Amendment and taking your orders from the structure over and above your orders from the Bible, or are you in fact violating the Second Commandment? Evangelical ears perk up when you suggest the Second Commandment is being violated. That gets their attention. I never would've known that nuance (a slight variation in meaning, tone, expression) approximately these people,so [Rob's] able to accumulate under their skin in a way that I never could hold.
Source: motherjones.com