A prominent theatrical director in California, a Mormon, has resigned under pressure because of his support for Prop 8. Excerpt:
Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer ("Hairspray"), called Mr. Eckern last week and said that he would not let his work be performed in the theater. "I was uncomfortable with money made off my work being used to put discrimination in the Constitution," Mr. Shaiman said. He added, however, that the entire episode left him "deeply troubled" because of the potential for backlash against gays who protested Mr. Eckern's donation."It will not help our cause because we will be branded exactly as what we were trying to fight," said Mr. Shaiman, who is gay. "But I do believe there comes a time when you cannot sit back and accept what I think is the most dangerous form of bigotry."
So if Shaiman feels bad about it, the blacklist he and his ilk are setting up is okay? What's next? Will all conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims, as well as all social conservatives, have to get out of the arts or stay in the closet at risk of their professional career? (A Christian friend who works in the entertainment industry told me if he had let it be known in his office that he supported Prop 8, he would have been stoned). Will they get around to boycotting newspapers until they fire writers who oppose gay marriage? Where does it stop?
Andrew Sullivan sounds like he supports a blacklist, though he now denies it. Look, I support in principle the right of anybody to withhold their labor or their trade from another person or institution. I support the right of conservative Christians to boycott Disney over its gay-friendly policies, though I wouldn't have joined the boycott and thought it a waste of time. I also think that, with an exception for religious institutions, gays should be protected in law against dismissal from their jobs because of their homosexuality.
But what happens when people like this Mormon theater director start losing their job because of their political and religious beliefs?
It's called a blacklist.
Eugene Volokh, the UCLA law prof who supports gay marriage, once wrote that one of the key goals of the gay rights movement is to punish and marginalize people who in private life hold views they see as anti-gay. I'm working on a column for Sunday in which I discuss why it's in the interest of prudent social conservatives and prudent gay rights activists to come to some sort of settlement that would allow for gay marriage while establishing a zone of protection of religious liberty around religious institutions, for the sake of religious freedom. But I fear that the gay rights movement isn't interested in that -- that it's only interested in crushing its enemies. The blacklisting of the Mormon director is a very bad sign.
UPDATE: Here it is, the "Anti-Gay Blacklist," official and everything. What this calls up is a conservative boycott of businesses and individuals that opposed Prop 8. Which is stupid, and counterproductive, but there you go.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Karen wrote "The ugly rhetoric coming from so many "Christians" is also very disheartening". Oh really, what hate is that? You mean by following their faith. I don't see them physically attacking anyone.
Here is something most people never talk about. It was not just those 'terrible' Christians or Mormons.
Bay Area Muslim leaders told their members at Mosques and Muslim organizations to vote Yes on 8. There was even a Muslim site on line talking about that. It is still in Google, but they have quickly taken that down that site once the thugs and "brown shirts" in the gay movement started to look for victims of their bigotry.
Now they are not Christians.
In the Gay dominated city of San Francisco a large district did voted Yes on 8. Interestingly the Conservative district in S.F. voted No on prop. 8. Was it a Christian district that voted Yes on 8? No, it was Chinatown. That is correct the Chinese people overwhelmingly voted Yes on 8. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that 4 out of 5 Chinese voted Yes on 8. But interestingly the majority of Chinese are not Christians in that area.
Then 70 percent of African-Americans voted Yes on 8. Yet have these thugs gone and protested at any large black churches? Nope. Because they are cowards.
The majority of Latinos voted Yes on 8 against Gay marriage. Are these protesters targeting Latinos and the Catholic church? Nope. Why?
Instead they went after one elderly women who gave a mere 100 dollars to the Yes on 8 campaign because of her faith. The restaurant even hires gay workers who gave money to gay causes. Yet they want to boycott the place. Then they strong armed and black mailed her to give their gay organizations money. That is pure blackmail and a shack down. The FBI should investigate that. They went inside her business and threatened her if she didn't pay they would protest her business till they closed it down. That is black mail, pure and simple.
Then these thugs and bigots wanted to boycott a radio station because one employee gave 600 dollars to the Yes on 8 campaign. Not the owner, not the business, but one employee. What is the station supposed to do? Oh yeah, fire this person.
Then these hypocrites pressured a man to resign his post in Sacramento.
So what happened to freedom of speech in this country? This is just thuggish Nazi tactics to chill peoples participation in the political process by using fascist Nazi tactics. The government should prevent these thugs from doing this.
During one protest black gay men were called the N-word because many of the protesters turned their anger towards black members of their community.
So now karen who is being hateful and intolerant? You should open you eyes and think for change.
Nothing wrong with boycotts and blacklists? Ostracizing people who hold views different from your own?
Then there was nothing wrong with blacklisting communists in the 50's.
Choosing who you will associate with should always be a personal right. Institutionalizing the basis for those associations is another matter. Or maybe McCarthy wasn't such a bad guy after all.
It is sad but not uncommon for victims to injustice to perpetrate injustice on others. The abolitionist movement relegated women to separate auxiliaries and resisted attempts for anti-slavery women to speak publicly and achieve positions of leadership. The suffragist movement practiced discrimination against Black women and even employed the racist strategy of shaming White men into giving their wives, mothers, and daughters the voting rights already given to "filthy Black and immigrant men". Think about the immigrant groups who faced nativist hatred, only to turn around and bash later immigrant groups. Gay racism and Black homophobia are only the latest manifestations of the same phenomenon. The struggle for equal rights for all will never end because of the very human tendency to recognize an "us" only when there is a "them".
mrdon
Then there was nothing wrong with blacklisting communists in the 50's.
You mean the government forced testimony of dozens of innocent people under threat of prosecution if they did not cooperate and name more people?
Yeah, no difference between that and some people taking their business elsewhere when they find out what it's funding.
The HUAC was, in the traditonal sense of the word, a witchhunt, It looked for 'crimes' that mostly weren't there (And should have been legal if they were.) and required people to essnetually make up information about others to save their skin.
That, and not the 'blacklist', was the problem there. If various Hollywood studios, on their on, had decided not to hire communist actors, or if normal people had 'learned' of the communism in Hollywood and stop paying for their movies, no one would have any problem at all.
TO MARIA RODRIGEZ,
I am a lesbian who dresses in mens clothing with a male haircut, I dress that way on interviews knowing i may be discriminated against for it, I never hid, covered up or lie about who I am or what I stand for cause I'm proud of who I am. So as obvious as it seems I scream gay when you see me you know right away I'm gay and do you know what I went through one month before the election, HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
People of faith and not let me know and feel how much they hated me, they are the REAL THUGS!!! No on 8 people didnt get irrate untill after the yes on 8 group took our right to the word marriage away from us, and we had every right to be pist, not violent but pist. If you know a dog is mad, are you going to try have a dicussion or stay away? those yes on 8 people who tried to make a stand in a sea of no on 8 people were Idiots PLAIN AND SIMPLE!!! This is a war on the gay community and we are now on defence and attack mode, yes on 8 people are now on defence but before the election they were on attack mode.
I painted my car with very bright paint stating "prop 8 is discrimination" and "prop 8 is wrong and hatefull" Im a production assistant for a show that travels all over Los Angeles and if you knew what I had to endore from people who wanted to vote yes on 8 you would agree both sides were acting like "thugs" but you would never know that cause the media only shows up for crowds in fact yes on 8 people are bearly going through what I went through my hole life. I came out to my parents when I was 8 and have looked gay ever since, so think of the stuff I went through from society, I grew up in covina california, a city that went 5 out of 5 for yes on 8, so Maria how do you think my childhood, teenage and young adulthood went? It was awfull, so you now seeing the anger from gay people and i say its about time and its been long over due, but you have never went through what we have, you will never feel what we have felt, so what you saw was just a glimps of what hundreds and thousands of gay KIDS, TEENS and people went through their lives. So when I see people take a little old ladie's cross away and stomp on it, I think thats nothind compared to the stuff ive been subjected to and thank god someone was their to slap down her cross, I KNOW in my heart god would never want himself asociated with that kind of Judgement without his consent, wait what am I talking about, he said he is the ONLY one to Judge and no one else, yet these religous people continue to judge gods children no matter what he, God himself stated. its as if they pick and choose what they like out of the bible, which is book full of stories chosen by people not god, there are hundreds of other stories that were taken out of the original bible, just another exsample of how people change things to fit their need, like saying if you dont vote yes on 8 children will be taught how to be gay and priest will go to jail, these were lies told by religous people, is it not a sin to lie, disgusting isnt! To think that any bible you read today is a false representation of the orignal. resarch it yourself, prove me wrong, I dare you!!!
I also have a huge problem with you calling the no on 8 group THUGS, I think your confussing sticking up for yourself with gang members, guns, drug selling and killing, maybe your just trying really hard to paint gays as worse than the yes on 8 group, so i guess i know EXACTLY how you voted, right!!!
This week gay and straight people marched in Inglewood proudly and loud for their rights and last week we marched in east L.A., two hoods, how dare you call us cowards when was last time you marched for your right and your believes on t.v. for the world to see, oh wait you have all your rights, those were givin to you.
So I guess were are not cowards anymore!!!!
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.