The Hate State.
That's what a fair number of bloggers and supporters of same-sex marriage are calling Utah, following the lead of
AmericaBlog's John Aravosis - who is urging a boycott of all things Utah and all things Mormon, after the support of the LDS Church and its members helped pass California's Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages in the Golden State.
"Utah is the new Coors,"
declared Dan Savage, editor of the Seattle alt-weekly
The Stranger (and author of the sex-advice column "Savage Love"). "Since all Mormons-in-good-standing must tithe 10% of their earnings to their church, some part of any dollar you spend in a Mormon-owned business - and they're almost all Mormon-owned businesses in Utah - flows toward an anti-gay church that wages anti-gay political campaigns. Ski Colorado, Washington state, and British Columbia. Don't ski Utah."
Others have called for the Sundance Film Festival to
vacate Utah (in part because the festival headquarters are at the Park City Marriott, and an owner of several Marriotts in southern California was a big Prop. 8 donor). Still others urge a boycott of
Mormon artists - a list that includes Donny and Marie Osmond's current show in Las Vegas, Gladys Knight's concerts, and David Archuleta's forthcoming new album.
Funny, "hate" isn't what we saw
spilling into the streets of Salt Lake City on Friday night, when 3,000 people picketed around Temple Square in opposition to Prop. 8 and the LDS Church's support of it.
We saw love. We saw commitment. We saw the beginnings of a movement. And we saw that Utah isn't as monolithic as people outside the state think.
Boycotting Sundance, as
Daily Kos and David Poland's
Hot Blog both argue, accomplishes nothing. Park City is a blue dot in a red state, Robert Redford's no Mormon, and Sundance has fostered gay and lesbian cinema - with titles such as "Go Fish," "Southern Comfort" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" - like no other entity.
(The idea of a Sundance boycott does give hack indie filmmakers a built-in excuse, though. Instead of saying a movie was rejected, a director can say, "Ahh, I pulled the movie before selection because I'm boycotting Utah.")
And a shotgun-blast boycott at everything Utah doesn't make sense either, because look at the people you'd hit in the blast. If you want a target, use this
handy database and go after the businesses of those who directly donated to Prop. 8 supporters (something the Prop. 8 folks threatened to do to the amendment's opponents before the election) - such as
this guy, the artistic director of a Sacramento-area theater who's now finding that people who work in musical theater (some of whom, believe it or not, are gay) don't want to work with him anymore.
Most importantly, don't fight hate with hate. Fight it with love - the kind of love we saw outside Temple Square this weekend.
UPDATE: Here's the word from the
Sundance Institute, which has received some e-mails calling for a boycott or for Sundance to move the festival from Park City:
“The Sundance Institute has a long history, and in fact was founded, on the idea of championing diversity and freedom of expression," said Brooks Addicott, Sundance's associate director for media relations. "It would be a grave disappointment to us if the Sundance Film Festival were to be singled out for a boycott. For 25 years, the Festival has brought together a diverse range of independent voices, and we remain committed to creating dialogue around critical issues of our time."
(Photo: Leslie Sorensen-Means)
Labels: David Archuleta, LDS, politics, Sundance
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