For all the enmity Haggis created with Crash being the vehicle for some anti-Brokeback voters to deny it the BP Oscar, this is particularly ironic:
From Andrewsullivan.com:
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26 Oct 2009 11:29 am
"I Refuse To Consent" An open letter from movie director Paul Haggis to Super Adventure Club spokesman, Tommy Davis, who walked off ABC's Nightline set when asked to respond to questions about the doctrines of the Super Adventure Club. It's occasioned by the sect's public opposition to marriage equality in the Prop 8 fight but clearly resonates more deeply. Money quote:
I was online doing research and chanced upon an interview clip with you on CNN. The interview lasted maybe ten minutes – it was just you and the newscaster. And in it I saw you deny the church’s policy of disconnection. You said straight-out there was no such policy, that it did not exist.
I was shocked. We all know this policy exists. I didn’t have to search for verification – I didn’t have to look any further than my own home.
You might recall that my wife was ordered to disconnect from her parents because of something absolutely trivial they supposedly did twenty-five years ago when they resigned from the church.
This is a lovely retired couple, never said a negative word about Scientology to me or anyone else I know – hardly raving maniacs or enemies of the church. In fact it was they who introduced my wife to Scientology.
Although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them. I refused to do so. I’ve never been good at following orders, especially when I find them morally reprehensible.
For a year and a half, despite her protestations, my wife did not speak to her parents and they had limited access to their grandchild. It was a terrible time.
That’s not ancient history, Tommy. It was a year ago.
And you could laugh at the question as if it was a joke? You could publicly state that it doesn’t exist?
To see you lie so easily, I am afraid I had to ask myself: what else are you lying about?
This is the first part of the letter where he denounces their support of Prop 8 and other homophobic attitudes:
Tommy,
As you know, for ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego. Their public sponsorship of Proposition 8, a hate-filled legislation that succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California – rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state – shames us.
I called and wrote and implored you, as the official spokesman of the church, to condemn their actions. I told you I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated.
In that first conversation, back at the end of October of last year, you told me you were horrified, that you would get to the bottom of it and “heads would roll.” You promised action. Ten months passed. No action was forthcoming. The best you offered was a weak and carefully worded press release, which praised the church’s human rights record and took no responsibility. Even that, you decided not to publish.
The church’s refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word. Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.
I joined the Church of Scientology thirty-five years ago. During my twenties and early thirties I studied and received a great deal of counseling. While I have not been an active member for many years, I found much of what I learned to be very helpful, and I still apply it in my daily life. I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally. I saw the organization – with all its warts, growing pains and problems – as an underdog. And I have always had a thing for underdogs.
But I reached a point several weeks ago where I no longer knew what to think. You had allowed our name to be allied with the worst elements of the Christian Right. In order to contain a potential “PR flap” you allowed our sponsorship of Proposition 8 to stand. Despite all the church’s words about promoting freedom and human rights, its name is now in the public record alongside those who promote bigotry and intolerance, homophobia and fear.
The fact that the Mormon Church drew all the fire, that no one noticed, doesn’t matter. I noticed. And I felt sick. I wondered how the church could, in good conscience, through the action of a few and then the inaction of its leadership, support a bill that strips a group of its civil rights.
What is the Super Adventure Club? Is that like, Superfriends?
Regardless, good for him.
"Notorious was nice, but it’s not in the color purple range" "Angels and Demons may get nominated for cinematography the imagery was profound" "District Nine will definitely win for best foreign film it made money and everyone loved it" ~ 8movies
Posts: 2714 | Location: nz | Registered: January 12, 2009
The Super Adventure Club sounds like some sort of swingers association! I met him after a screening of In the Valley of Elah and he seemed sorta normal (as normal as one might seem after exchaning a few word niceties... meaning hard to get a read on someone), but lingering in the back of my mind was his association with the Church. So good for him, but wonder what he was doing associating with such a nefarious bunch in the 1st place. For anyone who has read Dianetics would no, whata load a nonsense!
Posts: 3891 | Location: Church | Registered: July 10, 2003
Originally posted by MysteriousRent: Now, if he could only write a decent script ...
As I chose both "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Million Dollar Baby" as the best films of their respective years we are going to have to agree to disagree. I will say the dialogue is not the best thing about either of those film.
Posts: 27149 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
I know plenty disagree, but I haven't see a good script out of him yet. I won't go in to the detail that I started writing and just deleted - but I think the Million Dollar Baby and Casino Royale manage to be good movies despite the terrible screenplays. Casino Royale especially goes completely off the tracks at precisely the moment you can feel Haggis's influence.
Letters from Iwo Jima and Crash are, IMO, the two worst movies of the decade (yes, I am serious), and that the scripts are the worst things about both.
I haven't seen everything he has written - I actually now specifically avoid his screenplays - but the movies I have seen (plus the hysterically badly written Black Donnellys makes me consider him the worst "successful" writer working today.
But, that's just me.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: MysteriousRent,
I still think it's bullocks that his 'Crash' won, but I applaud him for dissing Scientology publicly and calling them out for being liars and moving on with this life w/o Scientology.
This whole disconnection crap is pathetic, anti-social, and smells of brainwashing.
It starts from the idea that we all descend from aliens, with a very specific storyline.
Their damage comes from how they are anti-conventional medicine, psychiatry and other accepted treatments and instead prescribe counseling and de-programming.
The suspicion is that they use information they get from wealthy members and, well, you can fill in the rest.
As someone who thought EST in the 1970s was silly (really dating myself), that seems quaint in comparison.
Originally posted by ETHELCHARLES:So good for him, but wonder what he was doing associating with such a nefarious bunch in the 1st place. For anyone who has read Dianetics would no, whata load a nonsense!
Well of course you would think so, but there are a lot of $cientologists in the business, so he may have used it as a way to get his foot in the door. I know they offer free acting classes to try to get unsuspecting people to join, so maybe it was something like that. Of course, the upper levels don't operate under the same rules as the lower people, so he may have been brought into it by a powerful friend or friends, and only saw the good side of it.
For instance, I thought the church had a pretty wide known policy about homosexuality. Perhaps I'm wrong, but many of their more known members are really closeted and are allegedly blackmailed to stay within the fold and in their "happy" heterosexual unions that the Church, of course, has arranged. So they never really seemed like a very gay friendly group to me.
I agree though good for him for getting out of it and denouncing the Church. I know the lower level members do have many problems leaving the Church, but I don't think they would go after the higher profile members like Haggis.
