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like the Elks or Masons.
How much, I wonder, to they pay to use Stock's venue?
Suddenly Sundance is all about gays and we're unfair? Looks to me like the Mormon hand is everywhere out west.
Park City and Sundance aren't "ultra liberal", maybe a little left of center, but it is nothing compare to Provincetown, Boulder or Berkeley. It is not even that liberal of a ski town compare to a place like Crested Butte.
I have written before, a boycott of Sundance and Utah is stupid. I like how John A. now is saying protestors will be at Sundance/Park City.. Where are the "protestors" going to stay?, Evanston, Wyoming?
if you want to fight this, be much more sophisticated, look to the long term, and fight it where the battle last took place, California. If you are going to protest, do it at Shareholder meetings...
If GLBT communtiy want to make a successful boycott of Sundance, pressure the Studios from not sending anyone there, they are the one that make Sundance prominent.
I am not a member of the LDS, but someone who has travelled all over the west, and has stayed in either really rinky dink places like Cooke City Mt, or spent many nights in a Snow Cave throught the Wasatch, San Juans, Absaorka Ranges besides other smaller areas like the Wallowas... I know enough that if anyone would love a boycott of Sundance would be the LDS. I also know enough that Utah isn't all about the Church of LDS. I have had friends who worked in the Ski industry up in Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyon besides Park City, and they aren't exactly wild about the LDS either.
All I have been writing since John A. has propose a boycott of Sundance and Park City is there needs to be a scalpel used than a sledgehammer. A boycott of Sundance is lame, a boycott of Utah is lame. There are better ways to get back at the LDS than going after people who the LDS aren't exactly wild about, Sundance and Summit county.
i would work with Sundance rather than punished them. Cinemark theatre thing is bothersome, but Sundance and Summit County (ie Park City/Deer Valet (ie Deer Valley) and pretty much all the ski areas in the Wasatch Range) are pretty much the only sane and rational places in Utah, compare to places like Provo and American Fork.
Are there really no independent art house cinemas left in Utah?
If so, what a pity. If not, Sundance needs to go find them. Pronto.
Otherwise, what a joke that state has become.
Robert, get your finger out of the air testing which way the wind is blowing and make the right decision. I would like to continue respecting you.
And don't cry about your rights being taken from you...you didn't lose anything.
Be smart. Treat others of opposing views with respect. You are poisoning your own cause! It's laughable!
And all the legal rights afforded to 'married' couples are still available to you and your partner. You have not legally lost anything. Have whatever ceremony or celebration you want and enjoy yourselves. Just slow down and LISTEN to the opposing view....you cannot win otherwise.
That's our right. Now go wash your magic underpants.
quoting from henno603 in a comment made in response to an article in the SF Chronicle about today's protests:
"The word "marriage" has religious significance, so Prop 8's passing is not surprising. "Civil Partnership" does not have religious connotations, and is therefore less offensive to the moderate majority within religious communities. Living in a democracy, we need to frame our aspirations within what is likely to be acceptable to a majority, for it is the support of the majority which we need in order to win. Legal equality was won in the UK in 2005 because Tony Blair and the new Labour Government proposed full legal equality through "Civil Partnerships". This was not opposed by the moderate majority in religious communities. Our community urgently needs to revise its aspirations from unattainable “marriage” to attainable full legal equality through “Civil Partnerships” – a strategy which has been proven successful elsewhere."
Again....targeting INDIVIDUALS in this matter is shameful. What outcome do you seek?
In the days of the Civil Rights movement, this was known as the "responsible Negro" approach.
Civil rights groups filed a petition with the California Supreme Court to stop the enactment of Proposition 8 because it would mandate discrimination against a minority group and did not follow the process required for fundamental revisions to the California Constitution.
In the petition, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Society, California NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. argue that in order to protect the fundamental rights of all Californians, a higher standard is required to overturn the right to marry.
Minority communities cannot be stripped of their fundamental rights by a simple majority vote.
"We would be making a grave mistake to view Proposition 8 as just affecting the LGBT community," said Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society. "If the Supreme Court allows Proposition 8 to take effect, it would represent a threat to the rights of people of color and all minorities."
Whether YOU think that is the logical next step or not is irrelevant. It is what THEY thought...and there is precidence in other states that make it a legitimate concern.
Now you are VALIDATING their concerns, because you are demanding the job of a man who acted on his own deeply felt personal beliefs - because they do not agree with your own.
If Cinemark as a company had refused to screen gay movies (which they never have done), refused service to gay patrons, or descriminated against gay employees you would have a valid argument that would be widely supported.
But that is not the case - you are seeking to harm someone who has not harmed you! He didn't threaten your livelyhood or personal safety. He disagrees with you...that's it.
What part of the 1st amendment don't you understand? Are you related to Sarah Palin? Did you bump your head?
No one can take the right away from the church to teach morality as they see fit. But we sure can prohibit them from imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of us.
They can live how they please but they better not tell me how to live my life based on some book about an invisible man in the sky.
How much did you do to financially support YOUR cause before the election?
civil rights of a classified minority group who are protected by the constitution.
You have the right to believe it's morally wrong and to not do it. But, the majority vote may not be able to change the constitution in this way.
Seattle also thinks Susan B. Anthony shouldn't have made such a fuss over a woman's right to vote.
Seattle thinks Martin Luther King was silly for wanting to desegregate schools.
Cause we all know how desegregation and a woman's right to vote would have finally been granted if they had "slowed down and listened" to why they shouldn't be allowed to have these things. There was no need for their protest. Yeah.. their efforts were "laughable".
Seattle, you must be drinking the water straight out of Puget Sound. Your brain is on drugs.
Voting with your pocketbook and/or protesting IS a constitutional right.
Look, I understand there is anger, and demand for action within the GLBT community as well as the Progressive Community. I think the LDS and its holdings are legitimate targets for boycotts and pressure. The strategy is to hit the LDS in the pocketbook, I am all for a boycott of all Cinemark Theatres, or at least get "Milk" to change distribution to Cinemark Theatres... (Which I doubt, given they are contractual obligations involved)
However, boycotting Sundance is inane and just plain stupid.. Summit County is probably the most progressive and sane place in Utah. Beating them up because they are situated in Utah is stupid.. Utah is a much diverse state, and Salt Lake City is much more than about the LDS.
Sundance has also shown many independent GLBT films, one of the most famous that was picked up after a showing at Sundance was "Hedwig and the Angry Inch".. besides a couple others...
If the point of the boycott is to make Sundance leave Utah, that is also just as birdbrained and frankly delusional move. Sundance has been in Utah since it inception. They are not going to leave now...
Truly, if what will make Sundance Festival officials really worried if Hollywood decides to continue the boycott, but in Hollywood, business is a much powerful drug than ethics. The PR and agents, besides the production company, the workshops, are too strong to fend off a boycott from the blogging community....
John A. should talk to the Sundance Officials, see if there some way that there can be some middle ground. Summit County will just laugh off or make enemies of people threatening a boycott, much like how Barbara Streisand was mocked for her threats of a Colorado Boycott in the early 1990s.
I am against a boycott against Utah, Sundance Film festival, Summit County and most tourism in Utah, because all of them have small to little connections to the LDS. Many people I know who worked in the Ski Industry in Utah are hardly fans of the LDS. Whether it is the ski industry or river rafting down the Green or the Colorado rivers
Anyway I am not talking about Sundance regular customers, but I was alluding to "protestors" who are going to stand out in the snow, protesting people financing "hate".
BTW the turn out at the protests in SLC today were good. A few thousand at least! I wish it could have gotten louder like in other states but, this was good for a peaceful protest. I think it's proving effective to protests the LDS Church directly...
The LGBT community has always been a part of the film making business. Let us make the Sundance participants show which side do they belong. Let us bring the fight where it should be.
I think a surgical boycott of the LDS Church's financial holdings is much more effective than anything else we could do. The mormons preach hate for the same reason every religion does: The more terror that you can instill in people and make them believe that the gay guy down the street will not stop at marrying but will rape your son and your husband, the more the donations go up on Sunday. Those donations, in the case of the LDS church are turned into huge financial companies. I laughed at a previous post about mormon's influence in the west because it is so naive. The mormon's financial heart is in Boston. It owns Wellington Management and Pioneer Investment (both based in Boston); these companies launder the billions in cash that the church generates and do all the investing for the church (also Jennison Associates which I believe is also based in MA).....How do you think a mormon becomes governor of MA?????? Lots of local mormon money!!!
I have seen a lot of posts about boycotting Marriott. I agree, but not because the CEO is mormon, rather because the LDS church has a huge financial stake in Marriott. The LDS church's investments are really hard to track down; rather you have to decifer the workings of their investment arms, Wellington, Jennison and Pioneer. But if you do, you'll find many common names including Marriott, Jet Blue, Black & Decker and Nebraska....I'm exaggerating about Nebraska but they do own millions of acres of land in the state.
Be wary of targeting individuals for expressing their deeply held personal beliefs....because you also have important personal beliefs. Would you want to be forced from your job by those who disagree with you?
You are being either breathtakingly dense or just a run-of-the-mill bigot--my guess is both.
Civil rights groups filed a petition with the California Supreme Court to stop the enactment of Proposition 8 because it would mandate discrimination against a minority group and did not follow the process required for fundamental revisions to the California Constitution.
In the petition, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Society, California NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. argue that in order to protect the fundamental rights of all Californians, a higher standard is required to overturn the right to marry.
Minority communities cannot be stripped of their fundamental rights by a simple majority vote.
"We would be making a grave mistake to view Proposition 8 as just affecting the LGBT community," said Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society. "If the Supreme Court allows Proposition 8 to take effect, it would represent a threat to the rights of people of color and all minorities."
I highly doubt that their allegedly "deeply-held" beliefs are quite as deeply-held as the vows between married people they've campaigned to destroy.
GAY PEOPLE HAVE HAD THEIR CIVIL RIGHTS STRIPPED FROM THEM BECAUSE OF SOMEONE ELSE'S "DEEPLY HELD PERSONAL BELIEF"!!
I don't think we're too worried about someone losing their job that considers gays to be second class citizens and would strip them of their rights.
As I have stated before, don't beat up potential allies like Sundance Film Festival and Summit County, don't go after groups who have little connection to the LDS. Use a scalpel, make this a longer term and well thought out plan and angle of attack, and make sure as many innocent people like service industry workers who would be more effective by a boycott than the LDS are at the minimum.
Always remember that Utah is not the LDS Church, and painting everyone the same color because they live in Utah will backfire badly.
I would plan the strategy as long term and multi year.... and multi state. I also think the first focus should be California in terms of California businesses supporting Yes on Prop 8.
A very helpful person in a truck screamed "Homo" at me, but I thanked him and told him I could find dates on my own without him having to identify me.
It was so awesome to see so many young people.
Don't feed this troll. You're making her feel like she has half a brain.
"It has come to my attention that the CEO for Cinemark Alan Stock donated $9,999.00 to the yes on 8 campaign. This is troubling to me as I for years have enjoyed watching movies at cinemark theaters with my friends and family. With sorrow I must now discontinue taking my family on outings to your theaters due to this outrageous support for the removal of human rights of fellow citizens of the USA. I am deeply disappointed in Cinemark and I hope and pray you will come to your senses and reject hate in all its forms. Nothing less than the termination of this CEO and an apology will change my mind or that of my friends and family.
I urge you to be on the right side of history and not go down with those who sided with the klan or nazis. Do not taint the name Cinemark for future generations."
So, that's why we're talking about the LDS on this issue. Their the funding source! (this news on the issue is ancient history!)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Our self evident rights have just been alienated. Liberty is apparently up to a vote.
No one will lose homes and lifestyles over Sundance, but I'd sure like to see donators to the proposition be embarrassed at their own sponsored events.
You need to look into exactly what films the festival tends to show at the Holiday....I don't think it' s the slate that you really want to boycott.....
I'm just sayin',