Shoehorning difficult contents into an accessible package, Daniel Karslake’s already notorious For the Bible Tells Me So might well turn out to be an important documentary — even if it’s not a great one. Its subject is the yawning chasm between homosexuality and institutionalized religion (more specifically, Christianity in the present-day United States), and it focuses on several families — including that of former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt — who have struggled to reconcile their deeply held beliefs with a loved one’s orientation.

This is emotional material, but Karslake doesn’t always trust it to speak for itself. He withholds certain bits of information to give at least one of the interviews a more compelling arc. The film does better when it’s prodding the chapter-and-verse protestations of those who cling to the Bible as a means of justifying intolerance and hatred. Its assault is not so much on the Good Book as the scary, purposes-serving elasticity of interpretation. It’s an important distinction that might make For the Bible Tells Me So more palatable to initially defensive viewers — a gesture of good faith that’s no less crucial for being so carefully calculated.

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