His donation [of $1,000 to support Prop 8] was brought to light by online activists angry about the measure’s success at the polls....So theater -- musical theater, anyway -- will be reserved for people who think the right thoughts or keep their mouths shut about what they think. Great idea! Make theater more narrow and exclusionary. Not many people want to go to the theater already. Why not turn more people off? You never wanted to speak to those religious folk anyway, did you? Theater is a place where like-minded people congregate and remind each other of the good thoughts they think together.
[T]he swift resignation was not met with cheers by those on either side.
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.”...
The sense of disappointment over the vote extended to Broadway. Jeffrey Seller, a producer of the show “Avenue Q,” which is scheduled to be part of the 2008-9 season at the California Musical Theater, said he had been shocked when he heard about Mr. Eckern’s donation.
“That a man who makes his living exclusively through the musical theater could do something so hurtful to the community that forms his livelihood is a punch in the stomach,” [said Jeffrey Seller, a producer of the show "Avenue Q."]
November 13, 2008
You can't be the artistic director of a musical theater company and oppose gay marriage.
Even if your religion tells you so. That's what Scott Eckern found out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
210 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 210 of 210Blood atonement is a fake doctrine that opponents of Mormonism have polished, and pumped up, and pushed for years, and it is a complete canard. No Mormon teaches it or believes it, and most don't even know what it supposedly is.
Quayle is an excellent example of the LDS's Orwellian habit of equating "Mormons don't currently do that" with "Mormons never did that".
I don't understand your reasoning, blake. How does the clarity of the law have a bearing on how repugnant (or not) it is?
Mmmm. I see I wasn't clear. I was praising the clarity of the law, not suggesting that its clarity made it any more or less repugnant.
I mean, I vote against anything I don't understand. That's my rule. If I can't understand the actual text of the law, I don't vote for it, because I don't trust anyone to interpret it for me. (Also, ignorance of the law is no excuse I'm told, yet we have so many laws over so many arbitrary matters, we are all ignorant of it to some degree or another.)
And a lot initiatives try to hide what they actually do in arcane wordings and apparently minor alterations of obscure passages. And some are just poorly written.
So, yeah, I guess in the abstract, there's a repugnance to obscurity. If the Cedarford amendment passes with a text of "Kill all the Jews!" at least we know what the effect of a "yes" or "no" vote is.
Would the fact that a law stating "no member of the Jewish faith shall be permitted to vote in any state election" is clear and simple refute the accusation that it was Nazi-like? I don't see how.
Here it looks like you're making a parallel with proposition 8 and Nazi-ism. I do reject that parallel. (And whether you're making it or not, others are.) You'll notice that nowhere does proposition 8 say what homosexuals can or can't do. They're not even mentioned.
It's a fair argument that the law is neutral.
And it's also fair to point out that this logic used to redefine marriage will be used to create other changes in the future.
I've given reasons elsewhere why I think that's not correct, particularly that marriage has already been defined down, the government's in no position to do anything regarding morality, etc.
But I don't buy the equation of "resistant to redefining a word" = "civil rights monster". Keep in mind, in California, that's all we're talking about, at least as far as I know: All the benefits of marriage are available to civil unions.
It's really kind of a stupid debate to be having: Marriages have long since stopped providing the state with the stability it alleges to wish to promote; there shouldn't be any recognition of it at all at this point.
Blood atonement is a canard. It was never taught as doctrine nor practiced except by kooks as a justification for whatever it is they did.
Revenant is an excellent example of a complete ignoramus who thinks he knows anything at all about Mormons because he read some anti-Mormon literature.
(I'm a non-practicing Mormon who thinks it all load of shit, but I'll still defend the blatant inaccuracies about Mormonism.)
Throw out your hands.
Stick out your tush.
Hands on your hips, give 'em a push.
You'll be surprised; you're doing the French mistake.
Voila.
Here it looks like you're making a parallel with proposition 8 and Nazi-ism.
That was not my intent.
You'll notice that nowhere does proposition 8 say what homosexuals can or can't do. They're not even mentioned. It's a fair argument that the law is neutral.
That, I have to disagree with. Would a law saying "no religion may receive tax-exempt status unless the majority of those who attend its services do so on Sundays" be "neutral" with respect to Judaism? There's nothing stopping Jews from going to synagogue on Sunday instead of Saturday -- except, of course, that they don't want to do so.
And it's also fair to point out that this logic used to redefine marriage will be used to create other changes in the future.
I'm not defending the court's ruling that created the right to gay marriage, and I agree that the court's ruling created a slippery slope scenario. But the slippery slope argument can't be used to justify support for Prop 8 as it was written, since there was no reason to ban monogamous gay marriage along with all the other nonstandard marriages unless gay marriage itself was viewed as a negative result. The proposition could have been worded to recognize only "marriages between two adult human beings with no common blood relatives within the prior two generations", for example -- that would eliminate the risk of the courts forcing recognition of incest or polygamy, but left gays with the right to marry.
But I don't buy the equation of "resistant to redefining a word" = "civil rights monster".
This has nothing to do with redefining a word. This isn't France; the government doesn't define what the words in our language mean. I define taxation as "government-sanctioned extortion" and I've yet to be thrown in jail for doing so. Just because the government calls something a marriage doesn't mean YOU have to.
I don't see this as a civil rights issue. But it is certainly the case that the people who voted for Prop 8 were voting to strip a class of people of their legal rights, however questionable the path by which those rights were gained. People who think those rights were gained legitimately can quite reasonably cast the pro-8 crowd as "anti civil rights".
That was not my intent.
I assumed not. I think we're basically in agreement.
That, I have to disagree with. Would a law saying "no religion may receive tax-exempt status unless the majority of those who attend its services do so on Sundays" be "neutral" with respect to Judaism? There's nothing stopping Jews from going to synagogue on Sunday instead of Saturday -- except, of course, that they don't want to do so.
I don't think that's a good analogue. I think a better one would be a law that said, "The sabbath comes on a Saturday or a Sunday" (or something in line with whatever the definition of "Sabbath" is).
There are already laws saying that non-Sabbath religions are protected. But the word "sabbath" has a particular cachet that imputes legitimacy.
But the slippery slope argument can't be used to justify support for Prop 8 as it was written, since there was no reason to ban monogamous gay marriage along with all the other nonstandard marriages unless gay marriage itself was viewed as a negative result.
There's no language in there about rolling back any of the benefits SSMs currently enjoy, either. It's just a definition of "marriage".
Again, I don't think this is a hill to die on, and I have no doubt there's substantial bigotry involved.
The proposition could have been worded to recognize only "marriages between two adult human beings with no common blood relatives within the prior two generations", for example -- that would eliminate the risk of the courts forcing recognition of incest or polygamy, but left gays with the right to marry.
Well, yeah, for now. The argument I've seen made here is that when you redefine marriage to mean something different from what it's always meant, there's no bulwark against the next wave.
Frankly, I think the objections are abstract at this point.
This has nothing to do with redefining a word. This isn't France; the government doesn't define what the words in our language mean.
You've obviously never heard of "hate" speech.
I define taxation as "government-sanctioned extortion" and I've yet to be thrown in jail for doing so.
Give it time. Heh.
Just because the government calls something a marriage doesn't mean YOU have to.
The reverse is equally true. I mean, I call gay couples living together in monogamous-ish relationships "married". They want the government to use that word with them.
I don't see this as a civil rights issue. But it is certainly the case that the people who voted for Prop 8 were voting to strip a class of people of their legal rights, however questionable the path by which those rights were gained. People who think those rights were gained legitimately can quite reasonably cast the pro-8 crowd as "anti civil rights".
Again, if there's any other issue besides the word at stake here, I'm not aware of it.
There are already laws saying that non-Sabbath religions are protected.
That's not relevant; neither is it relevant that there exists a word, "sabbath" with an accepted meaning (not that there is one, of course, since there is no agreement what day of the week it is on). The question is, would a law banning tax benefits for religions that didn't worship on Sundays be "neutral". This is a thought experiment, blake -- obviously such a law would never actually pass, since society no longer openly dislikes Jews.
It is clear that a law banning state benefits for people with non-Christian worship days would not be "neutral". Neither can a law banning recognition of non-hetero marriages be reasonably called "neutral", since non-heterosexuals have no desire to entire into heterosexual marriages. And heterosexuals don't want to marry homosexuals either, I might point out.
There's no language in there about rolling back any of the benefits SSMs currently enjoy, either.
That's non-responsive. I was pointing out that Prop 8 exceeded what was necessary to avoid the "slippery slope" problem. The question of whether it rolled back rights for SSM is irrelevant.
That being said: same-sex marriages enjoyed the benefit of official state recognition. Prop 8 banned that. So you're obviously wrong about it not rolling back any benefits.
It's just a definition of "marriage".
That's a load of nonsense. Let me quote the text back at you:
"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."
That is not "just a definition". It isn't a definition at all. It doesn't say that gay marriage isn't really marriage -- in fact, the wording implies that it IS a kind of marriage. What the proposition does is forbid the state from *recognizing* any marriages other than heterosexual ones or considering such marriages to be valid. Heck, it even leaves the door open for legal polygamy or incest, since it doesn't forbid multiple marriages or marriage between blood relatives.
The argument I've seen made here is that when you redefine marriage to mean something different from what it's always meant, there's no bulwark against the next wave.
First of all, marriage has not "always meant" monogamous heterosexual marriage between non-relatives, as I'm sure you know.
Secondly, that argument is obviously logically invalid, because the courts already "redefined marriage" once. Thus, the argument amounts to "once marriage is redefined, a bulwark against change is impossible, so since marriage has already been redefined, we must establish a bulwark against change". Either Proposition 8 won't work (in which case passing it was pointless), or it will (in which case the argument that unwanted change can't be prevented is bullshit).
Finally, like I noted earlier the government doesn't get to define what words mean. People who want "marriage" to mean "one man and one woman" and nothing more are already shit out of luck -- as proven by the fact that "gay marriage" and "same-sex marriage" are now widely used even by opponents of the practice. The only question is what marriages the government is allowed to recognize.
You've obviously never heard of "hate" speech.
Hate speech isn't illegal in America.
Rev,
This is pretty simple, really: What is it, besides the legal term marriage, that has changed because of Prop 8.
As I've said (repeatedly), as far as I know nothing.
You keep talking about "tax benefits". What tax benefits were lost by the passage of proposition 8?
Again, AFAIK, married couples have no benefits that SSCs don't (or can't) have.
Other than the word "marriage" what do SSCs lose?
You keep talking about "tax benefits". What tax benefits were lost by the passage of proposition 8?
The only mention I made of tax benefits was in the thought experiment about anti-Jewish laws. I neither claimed nor implied that married gay people had lost tax benefits.
Revenant,
But isn't the point that they've lost something?
I'm just trying to figure out who's being oppressed here. And how.
Post a Comment