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Soon after that, Corra set up a meeting with Lea’s parents, to film their side of the issue. What the filmmaker thought was going to be a series of visits to carefully and gently tell their story, ended up happening all at once.

“While we were meeting her parents and filming them, Lea came home and confronted them,” remembers Corra. “That’s the scene that’s in the film.” Rule continues, “When you spend that much time with a family with those kinds of dynamics, (the situation) is going to ‘out’ itself on its own. You don’t have to force it.”

For the filmmakers, Same Sex America’s even-handedness in covering both sides of the issue is pivotal. The film also features other “everyday people” whose opinions have made this debate “a do-or-die situation,” along with religious leaders who feel that same-sex marriages are a violation of God's word and politicians who are conflicted between civil rights and their own beliefs.

“Every character in this film is equally important, including the traditional marriage and religious-right people,” says Corra. “If I came into (the project) with a political agenda, I never could have made that real and deep connection with them. I had to put any political agendas or opinions that I had aside, and find where we could actually connect.”

Corra’s connection ended up being his childhood. He grew up in the “Bible belt,” was raised a Catholic and attended parochial school, “which is very different from the lower-Manhattan lifestyle that I’ve had for the last 20 years,” Corra explains.

“For the days I was with groups of Christians on their bus, I was part of their group,” he continues. “I spent days riding around on the bus with them, which was really fun… When they were moving around the Statehouse, they were calling me over and saying, ‘he’s with us.’ And I felt like I was part of their group. I had to be.”

All totaled, Corra shot over 300 hours of videotape, and Rule began “weaving it together,” making everyone’s separate stories a unified whole.

“Its like writing a novel or a script, only your allowing the footage to speak to you, and you’re doing it in the post production process,” says Corra. “Rather then stringing together your best moments, you’re developing a film language and a narrative shape and giving the film its own kind of style and integrity through the editing process.”

Rule elaborated, saying, “It became more about the subtleties than it did about true essence of the events that were being filmed.

“I was more intrigued by watching how these people interacted with each other,” Rule says. “It really wasn’t about strong moments, necessarily. It was more about the quotidian – the everyday and commonplace. It becomes much more powerful, seeing how they interacted, because it’s real.”

Same Sex America airs on Showtime beginning this week

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