Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Artistic director resigns over Calif.'s Prop. 8

KCRA in Sacramento reports that the artistic director of California Musical Theater, "the state's largest nonprofit musical theater company," has resigned because he supported Prop. 8 and even contributed $1,000 to it, even though he has a sister who's gay and in a committed domestic relationship. He's LDS.
What Bobo infers from Scott Eckern's statement (which doesn't specify the grounds of his opposition) is that he voted his religious beliefs on a civic issue. But Bobo also thinks that piling on like this doesn't help the cause of gay-marriage supporters, who may well appear too intolerant in this particular instance. Your thoughts?
See also this New York Times article.

And have you YouTubed Keith Olbermann's impassioned Special Comment on MSNBC imploring those who voted in favor of the gay-marriage ban in Calif. to change their minds? Inspiring; well said.

added Nov. 18: Adam Feldman rightly says that pro-gay activists are, in effect, blacklisting people because they find their political or religious views objectionable. Bobo read somewhere (sorry, can't remember) that conservative campaigners were months ahead of the over-confident left in Calif. — spreading lies like "schools will indoctrinate your innocent children into the heinous ways of homosexuals" and other such nonsense -- but apparently liberals didn't organize on Prop. 8 until two weeks before the election, when it was too late. Gay people will win this debate eventually, but justice deferred is justice denied, etc. Still, browbeating people of conscience is no way to win support from moderates.


(Bobo is strongly opposed to Prop. 8; he placed the "Yes" logo here, ironically and for its shock value.)

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1 Comments:

At November 12, 2008 8:59 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is very complicated issue.

I think it basically comes down to gay actors/creatives/designers/audiences having a hard time supporting an artistic director who has actively contributed to stripping them of their basic rights.

Scott Eckern went out of his way to take away a right that has been long coming. I think if he had donated money to a measure revoking the rights for interracial couples to marry, this dilemma would seem much more clear-cut.

Everyone has to stand up for what they believe in, whether it's Scott Eckern or the thousands of gays who vowed to boycott the Sacrament Music Circus.

 

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