When you donate $1500 to a political campaign to strip other people—people who are not your co-religionists—of their civil rights. Richard Raddon is, or was, the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. All hell broke loose after it emerged that Raddon, who is Mormon, had donated $1500 to the “Yes on 8” campaign. The LA Times:
After Raddon’s contribution was made public online, Film Independent was swamped with criticism from “No on 8” supporters both inside and outside the organization. Within days, Raddon offered to step down as festival director, but the board, which includes Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Lionsgate President Tom Ortenberg and Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice, gave him a unanimous vote of confidence.
Yet, the anti-Raddon bile continued to bubble in the blogosphere, and according to one Film Independent board member, “No on 8” supporters also berated Raddon personally via phone calls and e-mails. The recriminations ultimately proved too much, and when Raddon offered to resign again, this time the board accepted.
Raddon released a statement that said, in part, “I have always held the belief that all people, no matter race, religion or sexual orientation, are entitled to equal rights.” Except for when they’re not—and Raddon also believes that the religious should wield a veto over other peoples’ civil rights. He goes on to whine about being a “devout and faithful Mormon,” and about how his contribution to “Yes on 8” was a “private matter.” Uh… no. A donation to a political campaign is a public matter; and civil marriage rights for same-sex couples did not infringe upon the religious freedom of Mormons, devout or otherwise.
Bill Condon, the gay guy who directed of Dreamgirls, attempted to get Raddon’s back: “Someone has lost his job and possibly his livelihood because of privately held religious beliefs.”
No. No. No. Raddon lost his job due to criticism of his public political actions, not his private religious beliefs, and his public political actions were a part of the public record. If Raddon wanted to go to church and pray his little heart out against same-sex marriage, or proselytize on street corners against gay marriage, or counsel gay men to leave their husbands and marry nice Mormon girls instead, that could be viewed as an expression of his “privately held religious beliefs.” Instead he helped fund a political campaign to strip a vulnerable minority group of its civil rights.
“Millions of Californians definitely lost their civil rights,” says John Aravosis. “But I’m not hearing a lot of concern about any of those victims, only sympathy for their attacker. When you use the power of the state to rip away my civil rights, and force me to live by your ‘values,’ you are no longer practicing your religion. You’re practicing politics.”
In the wake of Prop 8 millions of gays and lesbians all over the country have decided that we’re no longer going to play by the old rules. We’re not going to let people kick our teeth down our throats and then run and hide behind “Nothing personal—just my private religious beliefs!” That game’s over.
@Jordan,
Dude, sorry but if you work with tons and tons of gay people (ahem, los angeles film festival) and you make your living in large part due to them, then you are going to get in fucking trouble if you do something as stupid as donate to yes on prop 8.
It would be the same if someone at the Mormon church, who worked as the head of the temple, donated to a “No on Mormons” campaign. she/he would be pressured to resign, period. Doesn’t matter what their “personal beliefs” are. If you are part of something and then donate to go against it, your career will probably suffer.
Private religious belief = your own thoughts on religion going on in your own head.
Private religious belief = prayer or religious service in your own home or church
NOT private religious belief = donating money to a political campaign.
Donating money to a political campaign is in no way a private religious belief. Your religious beliefs may influence your decision, but the act of giving money to a political campaign is a conscious public political choice, not a private religious choice.
Be our guests, America!
Have any religious belief you wish!
Just don’t let the Queers see you doing something they don’t approve of.
Freedom has it’s limits, you know.
@50
very clever, Johnny!
do you smell smoke?
51, I suppose next time he should simply donate anonymously. This idea that a vote for Prop 8 is necessarily hateful to gays is something lots of people need to get over before there will be any kind of progress on this issue.
Well the Mormons (and Cathoholics and Fundotards) long-running strategy of shaming and guilting their gay children into committing suicide isn’t winning them any friends either. And—let’s face it—that’s their actual goal. They don’t want us to even exist, so forget about having constitutional rights.
Next time you’re tempted to have sympathy for those people (an emotion they’re not capable of, btw), think of the countless innocent kids these psychos have so driven to despair that they take their own lives. If you have kids, take a long look at them and imagine what kind of monsters could do that.
the nytimes quotes raddon as saying he made the contribution “through my church”.
i’m not a lawyer, but i’m pretty sure that is not a wise public announcement given that the mormon church are already being investigated for not understanding the whole church-state divide.
hopefully this can become something to thank raddon for.
@55 You can’t donate to a political campaign anonymously, disclosure is required, otherwise anyone could exceed donation limits by donating multiple maximums anonymously.
Jordan,
Anonymous contributions to political campaigns are illegal. Citizens have every right to know who is financing political campaigns.
This has nothing to do with how Raddon voted, unlike donations votes are anonymous. But yes, a vote for or a donation to a campaign to strip a minority of your fellow citizens of a civil right currently enjoyed by all is objectively an act against said minority.
** 51, I suppose next time he should simply donate anonymously. This idea that a vote for Prop 8 is necessarily hateful to gays is something lots of people need to get over before there will be any kind of progress on this issue. **
Were there many gays that were FOR Prop 8? Who wanted it to pass and take away the right to marry? Have I missed something huge?
I read an article on HuffPo (can’t remember who it was by) that said the cost of health benefits for a civil-union partner were taxed as income – unlike those for a married partner. True or not? Or does it depend on the state?
Still clueless, apparently, but seeking enlightenment.
We need to form a church of the Gay religion! If we want to deal on an equal plane field with these bigots.
Nobody has told me what we’re protecting marriage from 🙁
Yo @47, that’s just the thing. By focusing on donors to Yes on 8, one is targeting specific individuals who clearly made a political choice in the public square. By targeting churches or Mormons in general, you cross the line of guilt by association. You don’t know what the individual in question did, you are generalizing. That’s where you slide down the slippery slope. Focusing on specific donors is much cleaner ethically and practically.
@35
He voted with the majority to protect marriage.
From…what? Nobody has ever answered that question. It’s always conveniently glossed over when someone who makes such an idiotic statement is called on it.
Stay out of religion, and religious people will stay out of politics.
Gee, does your planet have, like, oxygen and kittens and stuff, too? ‘Cause you’re sure not from THIS one.
59, Perhaps next go ’round, we should target everyone who donated to the Republican party, which has some notoriously anti-gay politicians. Clearly, anyone who donates to the GOP is a raging homophobe and deserves to be hounded out of his job.
Why isn’t just going to hell for all eternity after we die enough?
Do the religious folk not really believe that? Maybe they feel like they need to promp God since we haven’t turned into pillars of salt already.
#62, one of the guys debating Dan last week said it would take him an hour to explain how gays getting married would hurt him. (Without interruption or question, of course…)
I guess in Jordan’s world public financial support for bigotry should be perfectly acceptable.
Hey Jordan, would you be so supportive of folks like Raddon if they had donated to the KKK? Nation of Islam? Aryan Nations? Do you find funding of ALL kinds of bigotry acceptable? Or do you just excuse anti-gay bigotry?
67, you forgot the Nazis. Right? Prop 8 is the worst thing since the Holocaust, isn’t it? Perhaps even slightly worse than the Holocaust?
@63:
The LDS church has taken a very public and explicit stance here, and is acting on it as an institution. Ergo, this is not guilt by association. Holding dues-paying members of an organization accountable for the actions that organization takes on their behalf is perfectly appropriate. Again, that’s the whole point here. If I wrote a check for 10% of my yearly income to Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church, I might expect to have to answer some questions about my support for their public actions.
If I were to “target” friends or associates of Mormons simply for their association with members of an explicitly anti-homosexual group, that would be in a sense be guilt by association. Except since I’m not the State, the only consequence of such “guilt” would be criticism, so again hardly a threat to anybody’s personal liberties.
I’m not aware of any Constitutional right to be exempt from criticism.
Never said that, Jordan, I merely asked some questions about other bigoted causes that one could possibly donate to. A question that you didn’t answer.
Since you are making the claim through inference, why don’t you make it explicit. Explain exactly how a donation to a proposition to remove the right of marriage from gays is not an act of anti-gay bigotry.
read all this shit
still think it is small fry
our loss was from a fucked campaign on out side
blame, blame, finger, finger – waste of time if we continue to give tens of millions to crummy ballot campaigns
they, No on 8, did MOST everything wrong – – or more pointedly, they did NOTHING
and frankly, the MORMONS could give a crap about a bunch of whining homos
scratch the surface and you will find hard core survivors – bolstered by their own history and hard work
but then, again, where is the rage about the Catholic Bishops???
Lots of gay boys are lapsed Catholics, so do they feel better letting the Bishops who organized the campaingn off the hook??
Jesus, this is hard to sort out … I detest all organized churches for good reasons it seems. I did suck dick at Sunday school as I remember…
70, I didn’t answer your question because it’s mind-numbingly stupid. People have a whole range of views on gay rights that can’t easily be reduced to “love them” or “hate them”, but then you’d need a few extra brain cells to be able to process that. If your strategy is to paint the opposition as Nazis (KKK, white supremacists, whatever), that is indeed a losing proposition.
More to the point, who are YOU to decide what is a bigoted cause and what isn’t? What if PETA decided to start shit about people who voted against that animal rights initiative in CA? Would you be saying, yeah it’s totally reasonable for people to lose their jobs because they don’t support animal rights?
You assholes, and Dan first among them, ought to read Sen. Smith’s Declaration of Conscience, delivered at the height of McCarthyite witch hunts. It might provide some much needed perspective on the issue.
Thanks for personal insults, Jordan. They stand as such a glowing testament to your towering intellect.
You have still failed to address the question. In fact, you seem to be implying that there is no possible objective definition or measure of bigotry.
Again, I no of no one who has been fired for supporting Prop 8. Raddon quit, most likely because he felt he had that public knowledge of his donation had destroyed any relationship of trust he had with his gay and gay friendly colleges. Same for the guy in Sacramento.
I certainly wouldn’t expect to maintain good relationships with a bunch of Mormon co workers if I donated money for a petition denying them the right to baptize the dead without their permission or make magic underoos. Would you? (note don’t expect that you’ll actually address this question, rather than respond with just personal attacks)
You do understand that there’s a difference between protests by private citizens and actions taken by the government, right? Is somebody holding Congressional hearings for Mormons and their associates? No? Then this isn’t McCarthyism.
Johnny,
If you think it’s right for people to lose their jobs over their political views, that is of course your right. It is also my right to label the current climate in the gay community as McCarthyite, and harmful to long-term prospects for equal marriage.
It is also my right to distance myself from the majority of responses to Prop 8, because I don’t wish to be associated with the intolerant and racist screeds that have been centered on recriminations, in particular against the African-American community and the Mormon Church.
If you are a bigot, Johnny, and from your magic underoos comment we can see that you are, you can’t expect me not to call you out on being one.
I see so referring to the “sacred undergarments” of a religion that just got done spending millions of dollars and countless hours fighting to deny me the right to civil marriage in a mocking context is bigoted, but donating to the political campaign to deny me the right to civil marriage is not. For someone, who takes such umbrage at donating to Prop 8 being called bigoted, you certainly are quick to bandy the term about when it suits your purposes, aren’t you.
No one said it wasn’t your right to distance yourself from anything you don’t like. You can distance yourself from the entire queer community for all I care. You can even attack it, as you have been doing.
I would also point out that members of the Mormon Church are free to distance themselves from the bigoted anti-gay campaign of the LDS. They are also free to try and hide their bigoted actions behind the smoke screen of “private religious beliefs”.
Oh, and one last time, perhaps it will sink in with you. No one has lost their jobs over their political views .
As for the comment about Mr. Raddon donating through the LDS Church, perhaps the truth is closer to this: he was called in by his bishop (congregational leader) and told that, based on his tithing records, he could donate X amount of money to Yes on Prop 8. So he made the donation because his priesthood file leader told him to open his wallet and give, and told him a specific amount.
Maybe one good thing that might come out of this is that the next time the LDS Church tries to armtwist members into donating by looking at their tithing records and seeing what they can afford, the members will demur in one way or another.
===========
When I sent in my resignation letter to the Church two weeks ago, I told them I’d donated to No on 8 and No on 102 here in Arizona. I don’t have a problem with people knowing I donated. I WANTED the Church to know. What’s Raddon’s problem?
How dare these bastards have an opinion and put their money where their
mouths are. Hey, is lynching still illegal? I hate people with different morals
than mine, especially Mormans. 😉
I love you Dan Savage
@77
You made that up, didn’t you.
This is simply a perfect essay. So very well put.
Yes, that game’s over.
[quote]People have a whole range of views on gay rights that can’t easily be reduced to “love them” or “hate them”, but then you’d need a few extra brain cells to be able to process that.[/quote]
Not really. Its got nothing to do with love them or hate them. Its about “believes gay people are equal and entitled to the same treatment as everyone else” or “gay people are inferior, and therefore its ok to deny them their rights.” And if you choose the latter position, you can expect to get backlash because you are an asshole.
[quote]It is also my right to distance myself from the majority of responses to Prop 8, because I don’t wish to be associated with the intolerant and racist screeds that have been centered on recriminations, in particular against the African-American community and the Mormon Church.[/quote]
By all means, distance yourself. Wait, you’re still here. Why is that again?
@78
Really? I have no problem what so ever with people, whose morals differ from mine. Where I do have a problem is with people, who try and create laws that force me live according to their morals, rather than my own.
Nate @ 43 nailed it. It’s quite simple. The mormons can’t play it both ways – if you PUBLICLY hate on any group by giving money to said hate-group, you’re going to be called out on it. That’s life. Deal with it.
35: Well…what about all of the churches that wish to acknowledge members of their congregation by joining them in the union of marriage. Oh, crap, that’s right, they aren’t ALLOWED to because some OTHER religion says so. Right. I see. So one church’s definition of marriage is better than another’s?
I wonder if Don Cheadle and Forest Whitaker would support Miss Raddon if he contributed to a White Supremacy organization. The feeling that Blacks are inferior is a privately held belief ya know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Naz…
This is a list of Nazi German Concentration Camps.
At the end of the war the German citizens were forcibly marched through them so they could see What They Had Allowed! What They Had Allowed!
Why should Mormons be protected from their same atrocities. The Mormon Meadows Massacre happened so long ago but it is their essence.
The only way to alter Maniacal Mind Sets is confront them with Reality.
They are Not the chosen ones nor superior.
Mormonism is No democracy perhaps it should be.
The UCC and other churches have created marriage rites for same sex couples. Why are their rites less important, and somehow less LEGAL, than the LDS or Catholic marriage rites? Where’s the fairness there? Either everyone gets to play or no one gets to play, so, mormons, which is it
Am I the only one who is angry at Forest Whitaker and Don Cheadle (the only two names from the list I knew) for their part in this?
It is absolutely inexcusable that they would be willing to back this man up. I’m glad they finally yielded to sense, but it is very troubling that they resisted at first.
I’m going to be regarding both of them in a new light from now on.
I don’t think these idiots realize what they’ve started. They went after peoples’ families. Anyone with a brain knows what comes next.
If these are Mr. Raddon’s “privately held religious beliefs”, why does everyone know about them?
Proselytizing on street corners is not a private action — it’s almost the definition of a public action. If Raddon were on street corners shouting “Fags go to hell! Repent! Accept Jesus as Satan’s brother! Become a Mormon!”, I would argue that his actions are very public. And, if they offended the audience of the LA Film Festival, they would be equally within their rights to voice their displeasure to the LA Film Festival.
One of the consequences of public action, of making your opinions known in an attempt to persuade others of them, is the possibility that others will find them reprehensible. If you fear they will disassociate themselves from you afterward, you should keep them to yourself, and keep them private.
Aside from disagreeing with you about what a private matter is — I think you’re much too restrictive, Dan — I think you’re on the right track.
I keep remembering two things from my childhood in the South listening to racists talk about civil rights laws:
1. People have a freedom of association (and by implication the freedom of non-association with people they don’t like). This was used to explain why blacks could be denied access to public accommodations. Well, if that’s the case, why are conservatives crying foul just because we don’t want to do business with people who treat us like crap?
2. You can’t legislate morality. This was used by people who would, arguendo, admit that racism was wrong, but that you couldn’t use a statute to make people act non-racist. Do you notice that ever since Lawrence v. Texas, they’ve completely dropped the “you can’t legislate morality” line?
I’ve become used to hearing (and reading) some pretty vicious bile coming from the mouths and keyboards of christians, only to see them turn around and wonder about why the “other side” are such haters. I’ve always said you have to be fundamentally dishonest to be a christian, either with yourself so you can more easily suspend credulity and believe the nonsense they peddle, or with others in order to peddle the nonsense to them without the impediment of conscience.
A commenter who obviously lacks basic comprehension skills spewed the following:
“The director of LAFF has no such luxury, and if you like, we can just flip that example – a gay director of LAFF having to resign because of Mormon protests at his donating 1500 to the No on 8 campaign. Are you telling me Savage and you and whoever else would be in favour of it then?”
NONSENSE.
This is a ridiculous analogy. The director got flack because his donation TOOK AWAY OTHER PEOPLE’S CIVIL RIGHTS.
Joe McCarthy was vilified because he was performing a witchhunt. Withhunts target INNOCENT PEOPLE. This director’s ACTIONS AWAY OTHER PEOPLE’S CIVIL RIGHTS.
The Mormon church deserves to get every bit of non-violent harassment it gets for waging its battle to keep another group of people as second class citizens. And yes, given that the holocaust started out with the Nazis targeting the gays and turning them into second class citizens, there are certain analogies between the Mormons feeding at the trough of hate and the Nazi mindset. I really don’t get those who use absurd and easily mockable religious beliefs (magic stones, sacred underwear, adam and eve in Missouri) as a foil to try to cut down my rights expecting me to do anything other than point out what a crock their religion is. I can certainly make a better argument that people foolish enough to be mormons should be barred from procreation than they can make that my spouse and I should be barred from entering into a state sanctioned union.
I’ve heard that Mormons were seriously pressured to donate to Prop 8 by their church leaders, so what I’m wondering is if this guy, who says that he’s devout, was similarly pressured and that’s why he donated, despite his stated beliefs to the contrary. This angle might make for good follow-up by a reporter.
I am an atheist, so religion-based arguments about homosexuality don’t work on me.
That being said, I thought that it was really terrible that so many people said that they would never consider voting for Mitt Romney for President solely because of his religion. I actually had sympathy for the plight of the Mormons for a while there. Those days, however, are now long gone. One would think that a group of people so distrusted and despised as the Mormons wouldn’t be so quick to go after a group even more distrusted and despised than them, but I guess that’s what bullied people do in situations like this. They find someone with less standing and less clout and bully them. The difference between gays and Mormons, apparently, is that gay people will actually fight back.
His statement said something about donations ‘through his church’. Apparently Mr. Raddon thought his donations were required. Did the Mormons include his donations in the Campaign Finance Disclosures?
Just read Harvey Milk’s speech he gave at the Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco on June 25, 1978.
His statement about religion is a gem!
Harvey was killed, at 10:55am – on Nov. 27, 1978.
Today is the 30th anniversary of his death.
If only he were with us today.