Excerpts of Openly gay BYU producer, filmmaker fired by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune
Wilcox announced the move Friday morning on his Facebook page, saying he was terminated the previous week by his BYU supervisors who "cited certain tasks and communications that I had not performed to their liking."
The Emmy-winning filmmaker, who in an email Friday declined to be interviewed, defended himself in his Facebook post. He said he faced "an increasingly hostile work environment over the last several months with which I refused to continue to engage."
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said emphatically that Wilcox wasn't let go for being gay or for his work on the documentary.
She mentioned Wilcox's August interview about his life and work with Radio West's Doug Fabrizio, in which he told the radio host that his BYU supervisors "were very respectful and loving" when he told them about his homosexuality and documentary project.
"Kendall was terminated for two basic reasons," Jenkins said Friday. "He refused to come to work, and he refused to communicate with his supervisor."
Wilcox cautioned Facebook readers not to see his firing "as one more example of institutionalized homophobia on the part of BYU or the Church."
Wilcox is continuing to work on "Far Between," a film that will document his journey to find a place in a faith that gives him no option but a life of celibacy and in a culture that pushes him to reject his religion. He is interviewing current and former Mormons, activists and defenders, those in mixed-orientation marriages, gays with longtime partners, writers, scholars, therapists, mothers, spouses and children to see how they manage that tension.
