Utah’s growing tourism industry and the star-studded Sundance Film Festival are being targeted for a boycott by bloggers, gay rights activists and others seeking to punish the Mormon church for its aggressive promotion of California’s ban on gay marriage.
It could be a heavy price to pay. Tourism brings in $6 billion a year to Utah, with world-class skiing, a spectacular red rock country and the film festival founded by Robert Redford, among other popular tourist draws.
“At a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line on this one,” said gay rights activist John Aravosis, an influential blogger in Washington, D.C.
“They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards,” he said. “You don’t do that and get away with it.”
[…]
The backlash against the church – and by extension Utah – has been immediate. Protests erupted outside Mormon temples, Facebook groups formed telling people to boycott Utah, and Web sites such as mormonsstoleourrights.com began popping up, calling for an end to the church’s tax-exempt status.
In my mind, John Aravosis and AmericaBlog are far more effective than the Human Rights Campaign. John Aravosis has more scalps on his lodgepole than most people have nails. Americablog doesn’t just blog, it gets stuff done. And an A.P. story is just the beginning, if history is any indication. Because Avarosis is known for fighting on something until he wins — and he isn’t known for losing.
Sorry for the short diary, but I had to interrupt my Obama canvassing here in Henderson, Nevada to bring you the big news: the No on 8 web ad written and produced by myself, hekebolos and theKK, and backed by the Courage Campaign is going on TV with a big election day ad buy in the Los Angeles and San Francisco markets. The ad has been spreading around the blogosphere, but this is the biggest news yet. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the ad:
Thousands of wonderful last-minute donors to the Courage Campaign Issues Committee have helped make this ad buy possible. I can’t tell you the numbers behind the buy, but they’re big: big enough to get us on the air on a wide array of big cable channels, including CNN, MSNBC and Comedy Central, in the San Francisco and Los Angeles markets throughout election day. I can’t thank our donors enough for their generosity in helping the Courage Campaign make this happen. Remember, folks: this ad was a labor of love from the beginning–a completely unfunded project dependent solely on the time, energy and out-of-pocket expense of a few netroots activists and generous volunteers from progressive actors, directors, editors and crew in L.A. Special thanks also to Sam Rodriguez, who helped us with the last-minute ad buy. It is the first and only No on 8 ad to feature actors portraying a gay couple on screen, and to explicitly call out the LDS church on their extraordinary efforts to change California’s Constitution from the outside.
Getting this video on the air follows right on the heels of the LDS Church’s rejection of a Courage Campaign petition signed by almost 17,000 people asking them to stop the lies and blackmail on Prop 8. Both of these efforts are featured in the Courage Campaign’s latest email and press release:
We set a mission to deliver 17,345 signatures to the Mormon Church. And we accomplished that mission. After getting the run-around from the “Yes on 8” campaign, security guards and a Mormon Church member in Los Angeles, we delivered your signatures and created a media stir in Salt Lake City. It’s all on video and we hope you watch it.
Meanwhile, two of our friends in the progressive movement — netroots activists and brothers Dante Atkins and David Atkins — produced a provocative 60-second ad for Courage that we will be airing on CNN, MSNBC and Comedy Central in select markets on Election Day. “No on Prop 8: Home Invasion,” which satirically skewers the Mormon Church’s dictation of public policy to Californians, has been featured on Daily Kos, AmericaBlog, Calitics, Wonkette and many other blogs in the last 48 hours, garnering tens of thousands of views.
The LDS Church is freaking out and is releasing a statement denouncing the ad. In the meantime, local Salt Lake media is covering the controversy. Is it a step too far? Hardly. The Mormon Church has been invading California households for months with its lies about a bigoted ballot measure that would take people’s rights away. It’s just too bad we couldn’t have had this ad out sooner. The ad is called “Home Invasion”, and that’s really what the LDS Church has been doing for the last several months with their deceitful and despicable lies about Proposition 8.
Remember, though, that there are a number of wonderful LDS members out there. About 700 people, most of them LDS members, held a candlelight vigil in Salt Lake City last night in opposition to Prop 8. This is not about religion or religious affiliation: it is about the hateful actions of the Church Leadership and some of its most hateful members.
There are so many fights tomorrow to stomp out the hate and vitriol on the Right. Electing Barack Obama is the most important of these, but quashing the Right’s anti-gay bigotry at the polls in California would be an extraordinarily sweet victory that would have major implications for the future of this issue all across America.
GOTV GOTV GOTV! If we get our voters out there, we win just about everywhere. Let’s do this! And if you want to help out with the Courage Campaign’s efforts on this, they could definitely use some donations in the final stretch…
Update: I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that the beautiful and hilarious Bridget McManus is featured as the brunette in the ad. Big thanks to her for volunteering her time and fame to this effort!
