Even if you can’t stand the religion or politics of your local churches, you might find their congregations to be valuable saviors—of your historic and endangered movie theaters.

In other words, please think twice before engaging in a holy war like the one in Fresno over the historic Tower Theater.

The Tower, first opened in 1939, is an arrow-shaped, Streamline Moderne gem anchoring a neighborhood of retail, restaurants, and arts known as the Tower District. But, like so many of California’s signature theaters, it has struggled, especially in the pandemic. So, the theater’s owner is trying to sell. The owner’s preferred buyer is an evangelical church that has opposed same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ministers.

As a practical matter, church takeovers of old theaters make sense. Movies and live shows are often not enough to support the expensive upkeep of these dilapidated palaces. Churches with growing congregations can regularly fill the seats while raising money for maintenance and improvements—and keeping the space available to the community for events and screenings.

But these are polarized, not practical, times. And many growing churches are non-traditional, evangelical, or politically conservative, and thus don’t fit the more secular and progressive entertainment districts where you find old theaters.

In some places, churches and their neighbors look past their differences and focus on their shared interest in the old buildings. Responsible churches agree to preserve and maintain theaters they take over, in exchange for neighborhoods accommodating the traffic or parking headaches of hosting a congregation. Fresno has seen something like that happen when churches took over other theaters.

But at the Tower Theater, conflicts between the church, the theater owner, and the community have escalated, turning a neighborhood problem into statewide controversy.

To summarize: during the pandemic, the Tower Theater owner allowed Adventure Church, a largely Latino congregation located elsewhere in the Tower District, to hold services there (a questionable decision given COVID-19’s perils). Adventure liked it so much that, when Tower’s owner put the property up for sale late last year, the church agreed to purchase it—and keep it open for shows and non-profit events.

But when word of the purchase agreement leaked, many people in the Tower District understandably saw the transfer of the iconic theater to the church not just as a threat to the theater but as an attack on the spirit of the artsy, inclusive neighborhood. A petition opposing the sale circulated widely, and weekly Sunday protests grew. Local businesses also questioned whether zoning permitted having a church there, and thus whether Adventure’s presence might create zoning or licensing problems for bars and cannabis businesses.

The anti-church protests soon drew counter-protestors from right-wing groups, and police erected barriers to keep them separate. Either the church or the theater owner—it’s not clear whom—raised the political temperature by displaying a tribute to the late right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh, infamous for his homophobic rhetoric, on the theater marquee. California media, obsessed with culture wars, fueled the controversy with their coverage.

The conflict grew from there. The Tower property includes restaurants; one of them sued to block the sale, saying its own agreement entitled it to purchase the property. Fresno’s mayor, seeking to defuse the situation, offered the church an alternative property, which Adventure turned down. Other city officials floated the idea of taking the theater by eminent domain. There is also considerable talk of other people or institutions who might want to buy the place.

If the neighborhood can find a savior for the theater less problematic than Adventure, that would be wonderful. But there are reasons to doubt whether a relatively poor city government like Fresno’s, or a restaurant, can successfully operate an old and costly theater. If that’s the case, then Adventure or another church might end up being the best option, and it could be smart for the community to hold its nose and negotiate.

Yes, I can hear the howls at the idea of any compromising with an anti-gay church. But a keep-your-enemies-close approach makes more sense. Adventure is already in the Tower District, whether it occupies the theater or not. And if you’re going to have to put up with such a church, why not try to benefit from its presence, by getting it to fix up and preserve the Tower? And if you want the church to stop spreading hate, what better way than to engage with the church, with the goal of changing the hearts and minds of the congregation?

I’ve witnessed this more conciliatory approach bear fruit in two California places. One is Redding, where the huge Bethel Church, and its School of Supernatural Ministry, have long been controversial. Bethel has supported gay conversion therapy and attempts to perform miracles such as using prayer to resurrect a dead toddler. Yet when Redding’s civic auditorium was in trouble, Bethel Church and its members, even in the face of considerable criticism and fear of the church in the community, helped form a non-profit, Advance Redding, to save and manage the auditorium. The deal has been a civic success, with the auditorium hosting a variety of shows and the ministry school making rent payments to support the facility.

The other theater is literally around the corner from my San Gabriel Valley home. The historic Rialto, which famously played itself in movies (as the murder scene in Robert Altman’s The Player, and as the date spot where Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone watch old movies in La La Land) sat vacant and decaying for nearly a decade until Mosaic Church, a growing mega-church with congregations from Hollywood to Mexico City, moved in.

There was some community resistance to the church’s arrival, and concern for what the theater might become. Mosaic is not my cup of tea—I attended services, and while I liked the diverse and young congregation, your cynical columnist cringed at the pop-style music and the over-the-top positivity of the message.

But, three years later, Mosaic is undeniably a neighborhood asset. The church has carefully helped repair the theater, and taken care to keep the place open and welcoming to the community.

Before the pandemic, Mosaic was even screening movies on the Rialto’s giant screen. One of the last films we saw before COVID-19 hit was a Mosaic-sponsored showing of Miracle on 34th Street, the classic Christmas film about having faith in people whose beliefs we do not share.

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“I can’t see you for a while,” she told me on the phone.

“Why?” I said, alarmed.

“I’m giving you up for Lent.”

“Why?” I repeated.

“My mother recommended it,” she said. “You’re supposed to give up something you really like.”

To this day, I’m not sure Virginia’s motive was entirely religious. She may just have wanted a break. But, after 40 days of hellish separation, she was back in my life, and I in hers. Three years later, we were married. I was 19; she was a month past 20. The odds are against young matrimony, but we never looked back.

What makes a marriage work? What keeps two people together for over 40 years?

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My first date with Virginia took place at the ninth-grade prom at Jim Bridger Junior High School in North Las Vegas in 1967. She and I were both 14. I’d bought a 20-dollar sport coat for the occasion and had my prom invitation rebuffed by another girl. My cousin Esther told me to ask her best friend, Virginia, instead. I think I fell in love with Virginia that night. She was gorgeous and dainty. She had beautiful eyes, a magical smile, and a laugh so ringing and appealing that it made other people laugh. For decades afterwards, Virginia liked to tease that she’d been my second choice.

A week or two after the prom, my younger brother and I were ushers at Virginia’s Quinceañera, the coming-out party that traditionally marks a Mexican girl’s 15th birthday. That day I was going to have to dance a waltz, and preparations had gone badly. “What’s wrong with you?” Mrs. Jiménez, our teacher, had yelled at me in a panic. “All Latins have dancing in their blood!” Perhaps my blood had misplaced it. Still, that day, I didn’t mess up the waltz. And I spent the entire evening dancing with Virginia. Maybe her tolerance for my dancing demonstrated one ingredient of a successful marriage: you don’t expect perfection.

María Virginia Eugenia Vela Lara was born in 1952 in Apizaco, a small town about 65 miles east of Mexico City. She was the third child and the oldest daughter of Sixto Vela and Virginia Lara de Vela. Life in Mexico was comfortable for the Vela family. They lived in a large house with servants, and Virginia was surrounded by extended family. But when her father, Don Sixto, a railway man, began making noise about corruption within his labor union, someone tried to kill him, and he left Mexico for safety in the United States. Don Sixto eventually went to work at an automotive plating plant in Las Vegas. In May 1959, Mrs. Vela and her six children caught a northbound train and moved into a small house in North Las Vegas. Virginia was seven.

Virginia, left, and her sister Alma

The homes in Virginia’s new neighborhood were tidy and well kept, but life in this new world was harder. Gone was the balmy climate of central Mexico, replaced by the scorching desert of Southern Nevada. Living quarters consisted of three bedrooms and one bath to accommodate what soon became a family of nine children and two adults. F-105s from Nellis Air Force Base streaked across the sky and rattled neighborhood windows with sonic booms. Staples of Mexican daily life, like tortillas, were nowhere to be found, at least not unless you made them yourself.

Dating Virginia was not like dating other girls. Don Sixto and Doña Virginia intended to protect their daughters from the looser mores of American culture, and that meant chaperones. When I finally got my driver’s license, Virginia’s parents allowed me to take the wheel—but not alone with their daughter. We knew to expect a younger brother or sister or a visiting aunt to join us.

At the time, we chafed at the oversight, and I wouldn’t advise a return to chaperoning as a means to strengthening marriage. But after we were married we looked back at it as part of what made our relationship special. This old-fashioned insistence on chaperones conveyed the importance of respect for a woman. Virginia relished telling people that, as she put it, “José had to put up with a lot” to win her hand. She knew my love was deep and serious. I suspect many other couples would benefit from such an effective filter.

Of the two of us, Virginia was probably the “fancier,” despite the crowded living quarters. My neighborhood, Vegas Heights, was much rougher than hers. Cabbies avoided the area, and the gas company often refused to deliver the propane tanks we needed for our stove. My father, a Mexican immigrant, was as macho as they come. He liked to gamble and to fight, which often made life chaotic. He died in a work accident when I was fifteen, but Virginia, unfailingly kind, was a great comfort to me.

Virginia and I enrolled at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and, in 1971, after our first year there, I asked her to marry me. She said yes, of course.

When the day came to deliver the news to our families, I dressed in a gray suit and wore my finest shirt: a pink number with ruffles down the middle. First we told my mom. Once we had assured her that Virginia was not pregnant, she took it well. Virginia’s parents took it harder. Her mother, unprepared to have her first and favorite daughter given away so soon, burst into tears. Still, we got permission. At stake was more than mere sentiment, because, at that time, a male under 21 in Nevada required written parental consent in order to marry.

On June 10, 1972, at St. Christopher’s Catholic Church in North Las Vegas, Virginia and I were wed. The ceremony included popular songs of the time—”Sunrise, Sunset,” from Fiddler on the Roof and “We’ve Only Just Begun,” by The Carpenters—alongside elements of a traditional Mexican wedding. A large white lasso was draped over our shoulders, and I gave my bride a small gold box containing the arras, the 13 coins symbolizing Christ and his apostles.

Our first dance at the reception got off to a rocky start. We’d asked the band to play “Going Out of My Head,” a slow song by Little Anthony and the Imperials, but they jazzed it up, and my pathetic bouncing would have confirmed every suspicion of Mrs. Jiménez that I was an adopted child of non-Latin descent. Being the good Catholic kids that we were, we’d spent no time alone together in our new apartment except to put in a few basic furnishings, and it was nearly empty. The next morning, we realized we had no household supplies, and the only clothes we had were my tuxedo and her wedding gown. It was a formally dressed pair that walked into a nearby 7-11 to buy toothbrushes and soap.

Virginia and author at prom

I suspect one trait of a healthy marriage is unpredictability—or at least unexpected moments. Life with Virginia was full of surprises. I was reserved, shy, and maybe a little square. She was warm, welcoming, outspoken, and impish. Her laugh was always the loudest in the house. I didn’t expect—but neither did I find it out of character—when she did things like turn a whipped cream canister from her strawberry shortcake onto my face instead, or drive off to church without the kids and me because she felt we were taking too long to get ready.

Javier, our first son, was born in 1975. José Luis came next in 1979, followed by Sergio in 1980. I completed law school at Stanford and joined the Phoenix law firm of Lewis and Roca, where I worked for the next 30 years.

Like every marriage, ours had its challenges. When I was younger, I spent too much time on my law practice and too little with Virginia and our sons. She bore most of the parenting responsibility, and she was frustrated. Such conflicts have destroyed other marriages—so why not ours? Part of it may be that we listened to each other’s concerns. And while we expressed disagreement or hurt or disappointment, we never used loud or deliberately cruel words. Yes, sometimes one of us might say or do something hurtful, but it always got resolved with mutual apologies.

The comfort and the traditions of religion also helped. We knew that we would be in church on Sundays, that our kids would go to religion classes, and that they would be baptized and confirmed. We also knew that both of us took our marriage vows seriously.

Not that my wife was above some non-church-sanctioned reminders. The actor Jeff Bridges once said that the secret to staying married is not getting a divorce. You could say that was Virginia’s philosophy, too. “There will never be a divorce,” she liked to say. “There may be a death, but there will never be a divorce.” It was not a romantic notion. Long before Lorena Bobbitt became a household name, Virginia made it clear that Bobbitt-like consequences would ensue if I ever strayed. “I’ll put it in a box and mail it to the other woman,” she added for emphasis, as if further emphasis were needed.

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None of this means that a marriage can’t accommodate people with tempers. Virginia, it should be admitted, had one. Not for nothing did her father call her a cabeza de cohete, or firecracker head.

She was an aggressive driver, even when she wasn’t driving. “Why did you let that person cut in front of you?” she’d chide. Confronted with slow drivers, she’d lapse into her best imitation of Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady and yell, “Move your blooming arse!” One time, when four jaywalking sailors brought traffic to a slowdown on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Virginia leaned over and honked the horn on my behalf. I pointed out to her that I was the one they were going to beat up.

Virginia loved the United States and the opportunities it provided her, but she was also proud of her mexicanidad. It showed in her choice of art, literature, and entertainment (she took a guilty pleasure in following telenovelas), and it showed in her job choices: working with young immigrants, mostly Mexican girls, to prepare them for college. News reports about immigration raids upset her deeply. She would curse at the television when she heard about new roundups, and she once insisted we both go to a supermarket that we heard was being targeted to try to get ourselves arrested. (We didn’t succeed.)

Virginia was ladylike in most things, and she didn’t often curse, but she did have a weakness for use of the middle finger. As our son Javier once observed, people who said Virginia didn’t have a mean bone in her body failed to notice that she had two mean bones, one on each hand. Most of the time, the birds were teasingly directed at me. But not always. Javier found that out as a teenager when he joked that our Volvo’s Mars symbol, which is also the standard gender symbol for males, meant that only a man could drive it properly. “Here’s my symbol for what I think of that,” replied Virginia, with a genuinely angry bird. (She later apologized profusely.)

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In early 2012, Virginia began to suffer stomach and back pain that wouldn’t go away. After a series of medical appointments, we got a grim diagnosis: kidney cancer, stage four metastatic. It was Valentine’s Day.

Life expectancy for someone in her condition ranges from a few months to a few years. Virginia didn’t want to discuss the prognosis, but she knew things were serious, and she was frightened.

For all that, she maintained her sense of humor. After she underwent surgery to remove a cancerous kidney, I gauged her recovery by how many raised middle fingers per hour I got in response to my exhortations to her to wake up or to breathe more deeply. This was how she would communicate that she was feeling better, except when her mother was around.

On July 1st, 2012, Virginia died.

I do not agree with those who tell me that she is in a better place, although I’m certain they mean well. Anna Quindlen, discussing mortality in her latest book, best expresses how I feel. “There is no better place,” she writes. “This is the best place, here, now, alive.” Virginia and I had so much more to do together. We wanted to welcome our fifth grandchild. We wanted, years from now, to dance at our granddaughter’s wedding.

Virginia, granddaughter Sophia, and author

I do find solace in the many acknowledgements of the deep love Virginia and I had—what some have told me was a model marriage, a marriage that I can try to explain to others without knowing for sure if it can be explained. Many things, after all, have no explanation. I cannot, for instance, understand why God chose to take her from me at such a young age.

But I no longer view it just as cruel irony that the final chapter of our love story began on Valentine’s Day. In the months that followed her diagnosis, Virginia and I spent a lot of time together, time that I treasured. It reminded me of our dating days, when the only thing either of us wanted was to be with each other and to make each other as happy as possible. You can, I learned, fall in love with someone twice.

José Cárdenas is senior vice president and general counsel of Arizona State University.

*Photos courtesy of José Cárdenas.

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