ORGANIZERS of the Sundance Film Festival insist 2009 is going to be their biggest year yet - an assertion that gay-rights activists will not be pleased to hear.A hate theater?
While the star-studded event announced the 118 movies in its lineup yesterday, activists remain up in arms over the festival's involvement with supporters of Proposition 8, the amendment that passed in California, banning same-sex marriage.
The festival is held every year in January in Park City, Utah, the state that's a stronghold of the Mormon Church, whose elders "organized its followers to support the amendment banning same-sex marriage . . . and encouraged them to give generously to the cause," according to The Advocate.
Sundance organizers screen many festival films in Cinemark Theaters, owned by Alan Stock, who made a personal donation of $9,900 to support Prop 8.
Political activist and AmericaBlog.com editor John Aravosis, who uncovered Stock's funding of the amendment, told Page Six: "If you go to Utah, you're funding hate."
A Sundance Institute representative said all the movies that screen in Cinemark theaters will also be shown at alternate locations. But Aravosis fumes, "Just moving movies around is not enough. Money from this festival is funneled directly to the Mormon Church and to a supporter of Prop 8. Sundance should simply say they won't screen films in a hate theater."
Temper tantrums are so unbecoming.
Grow up, John.
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