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December 20, 2005

UnAmerican

When I was young - and a Young Republican - I was taught the principle that America doesn't spy on its own citizens. Domestic spying was the realm of dictators, and the United States was engaged in a cold war to defeat those tactics and the ideologies of those who employed them. Every high school civics class was taught this lesson as well.

Today, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network revealed that the Bush Administration has been spying on gay student groups who oppose the military's ban on openly-gay personnel. A kiss-in at the University of California Santa Cruz was labeled a "credible threat" to national security. Folks, gay kissing is something that Al Queda is fighting against. The federal government doesn't need to support their cause.

When the extent of the domestic spying program under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was revealed, laws were passed to prevent the federal government from repeating his mistakes. Extreme circumstances were allowed under the checks of the judiciary. However, President Bush has flouted the law and the Constitution by violating both. All of his excuses cannot change that.

In recent days, the Bush Administration has appeared as paranoid as the Nixon Administration, where the President resigned while caught the deceitful net he cast while conducting his own illegal spying operation. Using the force of the executive branch to spy on churches and children kissing on college campuses is not only morally wrong. It is illegal.

Posted by John at 05:01 PM | Permalink |

December 13, 2005

The Passion of the Popcorn Stand

At my evangelical high school, I remember our Bible class delighting over the fact that The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was selected as the school play by the secular high school across town. Heck, the irony was that the atheistic president of their drama club picked out the play and would be playing Aslan - the Christ figure.

While friends of our incorrectly predicted that the Donnie Darko drama Brokeback Mountain would bomb, I noted to my own friends how groups like the Family Research Council would spin the box office weekend as a victory for Jesus over the catty cattlemen. Despite predictions, Brokeback broke box-office records for screen-pulls in its very-limited release (only 10 movie screens nationwide). High-yield limited releases are usually a sign of great future wide-distribution success. The movie even pulled more per screen than the mega-hit Narnia.

Still, this yesterday from FRC:

Last week's release of the film version of C.S. Lewis's classic The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a roar at the box office. Over the weekend, Narnia pulled in $67.1 million, leading by more than 5-1 the second ranking film, Syriana, which pulled in $12 million. Syriana stars liberal actor George Clooney. His film demonizes oil companies. Narnia demonizes demons.

Meanwhile, Hollywood's hometown paper, Variety, was in full-gush mode over Friday's release of the gay cowboy epic, Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback scored the highest per-screen average of any movie this year, Variety enthused. Translated, that means that in the limited number of theaters where the film played, it did very well. How well did it do for its first weekend on the circuit? It brought in "an astounding $544,549," Variety breathlessly informs us. That hardly seems mountainous to us. But I'm sure there's a savvy insider industry answer. Distributors of Brokeback Mountain plan to "go wide by the Martin Luther King Day frame." Interesting. That might give the Hollywood wind machine enough time to puff this molehill into a mountain. For now, however, Narnia is the best bet for family-friendly fare. Variety and the critics may ignore it, but as Ronald Reagan always said: There's a big difference between the critics and the box office.

Yes, even Jesus needs an Oscar campaign.

Posted by John at 09:30 AM | Permalink |

December 07, 2005

The Good Lord Drives a Ford

This week, Ford Motors announced that it would no longer advertise in gay publications. The company said the decision was based purely on business models. However, the rabidly anti-gay American Family Association insisted it was a victory over the dark powers of homosexuals motor enthusiasts. Most media accounts took Ford's word on face value, and lumped the AFA into the dingbat dustbin.

However, as AmericaBlog revealed late yesterday, Ford sent two executives to meet with the AFA at their Tupelo, Mississippi headquarters just last week. The subject was the America Family Association's insistence that Ford pull their advertising to the gay market. AmericaBlog also notes that the two Ford executives who negotiated the deal with the AFA are themselves former Republican Capitol Hill staffers to anti-gay Congressman who later went on the work for the Bush Administration.

Posted by NSD at 11:03 AM | Permalink |