In this one-off observational programme for BBC Three, documentary maker Hannah Livingston spends six months following some of America’s most radical Christian preachers: a notorious pastor from Arizona who has been banned from the UK, and a network of preachers who take their extreme message about homosexuality and Islam directly onto the streets. Both have been labelled hate groups by civil rights campaigners.
Research indicates America is broadly becoming more tolerant of homosexuality. The film explores how this is driving some evangelical Christians to more extreme levels of intolerance. The pastor from Arizona, one of the most conservative states in America, is opening new churches and broadcasting his homophobic sermons over the internet to people all over the world, including the UK.
Hannah also travels to the more liberal state of California, where she witnesses first-hand the ramifications of America’s celebrated constitutional right to free speech. This allows anyone to express openly Islamaphobic and homophobic views in any public space in astonishingly provocative ways. Anyone doing the same in the UK would most likely be arrested.
The programme captures what motivates these so called ‘hate preachers’, why they are gaining ground in parts of America and probes whether an increasingly polarised political climate has fuelled intolerance in the US
Publicity contact: HM3
