There is a kinda crazy idea out there about boycotting the Sundance Film Festival and even more so, Utah skiing, in response to Mormon funding of Prop 8 here in California.
Let me be even more direct. The idea of pressuring Sundance or Redford to abandon this year’s festival and their 8 figure commitment to move an event which cannot be realistically moved is stupid.
Cruel, really. Festivals are in as much financial trouble as anyone and they tend to wear their liberal politics on their sleeves. There are plenty of people to rage at, but the Sundance Film Festival is not on that list, no matter where the location happens to be at this moment.
And the idea of boycotting members of a religious group because they gave money – in good faith, however wrong headed – to the other side of a campaign for a vote is exactly as stupid as attacking Iraq because it was filled with brown people who look and speak, to the American eye, a lot like the people behind the attack on the World Trade Center.
I understand the perception that Mormons follow their leaders without much questioning. But we don't know what every individual feels about this issue. And Mormons didn't cast the votes that made it go the way it did. Wouldn't it seem absurd to boycott Baptists or religious Christians or blacks... or whites for that matter?
And the idea of boycotting a state, with the intent to damage its economy, because some of the residents of that state believe you are immoral because of their religious beliefs… well, I’m sorry… it is incautious bias as evil as any and it is smearing, just as others would smear gay America.
Equal rights for gay America means, in part, being hated by some percentage of the population… same a blacks, hispanics, jews, catholics, and everyone else, from the obese to the myopic to the red-haired. You want it, you got it. Get used to it. It’s wrong, but we’ll be working on it long after we have our first gay president. (Unless… hmmm… you gotta know that someone has floated that closet…)
THAT SAID…
What would Harvey do?
It’s right there in Milk. The neighborhood businesses in The Castro - once an Irish neighborhood before it became a central home for gay San Franciscans – who supported the gay community got to enjoy the power of the financial power of the gay community. Those who were anti-gay lost the financial support of gay SF… and closed their doors.
The real opportunity here is to work a bit harder than John Aravosis, the blogger who started this buzz, and to actually target the individuals who were funding the Prop 8 effort… and their businesses, many of which are likely to be in Salt Lake City and Park City.
In Aravosis’ blog entry, not the AP story, he is specifically targeting Brent Andrus, who contributed $20,000 to Yes on Prop 8 and who used to work for and now owns some Marriot Hotels.
The Huntington Hotel Group website is – ha ha – “down for maintenance” right now. (More likely, the wave of anger was being expressed on the website all morning.) But here is the problem… according to a 2005 HHG document, cached on Google, Andrus’s company does own a number of Marriott franchises, primarily in California – direct hit – but not in Utah.
More specifically, the “host hotel” of the Sundance fest is the Park City Marriott, owned by Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc., of San Clemente, CA. Will it turn out that this company is owned by someone who funded Prop 8 as well? Perhaps. (It seems that “Sunstone” is also the name of a Mormon community organizing structure.) And if so, I would agree that Sundance should make a real effort, even at the costs of scores of thousands of dollars, to get out of that hotel and to not cause a moral dilemma for fest participants.
But that would be a specific call to action, not a general one. The Hotel is not owned by Mr. Andrus or anyone who has been directly tied to a large donation to Yes on Prop 8. The CEO of the company that does own it (Sunstone Hotel Investors), Robert A Alter, did give money to Mitt Romney... but he didn't give money to projectmarriage.com, which is where Andrus' $20,000 contribution was sniffed out by Aravosis. This is the problem with guilt by association. It doesn't prove that Alter is not a Prop 8 guy... but there is no proof that he is. Or that all of Marriott deserves to have Prop 8 weighting it down financially.. All there is here is some indication that Alter is probably a mormon.... which is no more of our business than whether he is gay.
But I digress...
Essentially, a movement against those who deserve disdain from INSIDE Utah… while at the Sundance Film Festival… with the media there in force, all looking for stories to write… with even one or two reasonably high-profile examples of Park City business people who sent money to California for ads… that becomes a massive story.
Movie City News will spend a lot of money in Park City to cover Sundance this year. I will be happy to pledge, right now, that we will not spend a dime that money in businesses that were financial supporters of California’s Prop 8.
So… activists… make that list. Make it honestly. Don’t tell me all Mormons are evil or that the entire state is off limits. But if a local gas station company is owned by a Prop 8 funder… we will fill up elsewhere. If a local restaurant or grocery or ski shop or taxi service… anything like that… if the owner sent money to California to strip gay Californians of their rights… I will be honored to not support that person with my business and to be as loud as I can about making that choice.
Breaking a window may cost a few hundred bucks to repair. But multiply that loss by hundreds or thousands of lost customers and you have made a real impact.
I will look for that list…
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/11/what_would_harv.html