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EXCLUSIVE: Comcast Wants NBCU Deal Done … VIDEO: Anti-Prop 8 Star-Studded Musical
By Nikki Finke | Category: Video | Wednesday December 3, 2008 @ 8:41am
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I suppose you all think the participants should have made sag, wga, etc. minimums for this. In which case it would never have been made.
Nice work marc shaiman and adam shankman!
Too bad this wasn’t around a month ago. . .
funny. well made and completely misses the point:
if the same rights granted under california state laws regarding marriage, are indeed available within civil union laws (which i understand to be the case), then there is no bigotry and no unequal treatment.
it seems to me then, that this entire proposition 8 issue boils down to semantics and the use of the word ‘marriage’, likely for the purpose of setting up a court challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act under the equal protection clause of the US constitution.
DOMA, (passed by an overwhelming majority of the house and senate in 1996 and signed into law by president clinton), is awaiting a precedent challenge (and a more liberal us supreme court which should come about sometime during the next four years).
this may prove to be an effective strategy for creating settled federal law regarding same sex marriages, but it is not bigotry (since civil unions provide the same rights), and calling it such, even with jack black as jesus (”see ya sinners”), while very funny and effective, is intellectually dishonest.
still, i laughed…
Actually, it’s not intellectually dishonest, if you believe that Seperate is not Equal.
By shrugging off Same-Sex Marraige because a seperate, comparable, and not entirely equal compromise is already on the table, you and those who support Prop 8 continue to participate in an overall suppression of Gay Rights, which weaves itself into other areas of American society.
It’s agreed the battle is about semantics; the seperation of Church and State should mean that Marraige as it is legislated should be seperate from narrow interpretations of the holy union from the Bible.
Ooo, bitchy union-bashing comment, Doug. Let me guess, you’re a low-level producer who thinks AMPTE hangs the moon.
does anyone feel like if the mormons had lost on prop 8, then decided to take their protest to the street, disrupting the commute to and from work (for many who supported no on 8 btw) then got ricky schroder and steve young to make a you tube mormon video musical denouncing no on 8, that gays wouldn’t be saying, “look there was an election, it was democracy at work, like it or not, the people have spoken”. can you honesty say that wouldn’t be the case?
also, i think it’s interesting that a site like perez hilton who is pro on no 8 and makes it known every 5 blogs, has so much fun picking on Scientology. I mean, don’t they deserve the right to live their lives the way they want as well.
I am neither in support or against prop8 or scientology . but just making an observation.
josh d. kelly
Josh d. Kelly is going to get ripped to shreds here for his insightful analysis of the situation.
The traffic-blocking and Mormon hate kind of had me wishing I could get a mulligan on my No vote.
Josh,
The problem with your observation is that you are generalizing the point. In the specific case of No on 8, those supporters fundamentally believe Same-Sex marraige is good AND supported by the constitution. If Prop 8 had failed, yes, they would say, “Democracy in action, working to uphold the constitution.”
In the specific case of Scientology, many people believe it is a cult which manipulates and takes advantage of people, and in many cases stealing their money.
By obsverving the general idea of people being opposed to something, you devalue the actual issue going on.
Church Mouse,
Could you define the “…not entirely equal compromise” already on the table? Just to point the specific differences of the civil union vs. marriage language…
I guess I’m still unclear as to what makes the two actually different….
Thanks
One, the majority deciding the human rights of a minority is not democracy at work. It’s mob mentality.
Two, civil unions do not carry all the basic rights of marriage because every legal document in the country recognizes “marriage” and “married” and “spouse” throughout their legal systems. It can be proved in court that if you have a “certificate of civil union,” it’s not the same as being legally “married.” Therefore, unless you change the language in every single federal, state, county and city document, it’s by nature discriminatory.
Awesome video.
And in that the CA Sup Ct. ruled that marriage is a fundamental right, then Brown v. Board of Education thinking applies. Prop 8 will be overturned.
And the Mormons, among others, deserve all of the backlash they are getting on this . . . plus more.
church mouse, it’s not an issue of separation of church and state. churches can dictate their own definition of marriage and marry whomever they like. many do. however, the state does not have to recognize the dictates of these private institutions and so the argument could be made with equal facility and credibility that not recognizing the marriages ordained by individual church organizations furthers the separation of church and state.
this has now become an argument about democratic choice: the vast majority of americans (or in this particular case californians), have decided that they world prefer that the issue-i.e. the semantics (as per your own concurrence), be resolved by reserving the word “marriage” for those unions between one man and one woman.
their individual reasons for making that choice are irrelevant and since equal protections and rights do exist under civil law, then the insistence of a particular group that the semantics be determined by a minority rather than a lawful majority, is in fact, anti-democratic.
if as you suggest, there are deficiencies in those legal rights under civil unions, then they should be rectified through legislative processes, not by trying to over rule the majority.
as for your belief that i am opposed to prop 8, i’m sorry to tell you that i actually voted against it but i accept the end result just as i accept the result of the other propositions and political contests that were decided on november 4th whether i agreed with or opposed them. that’s what a democracy is. sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t.
“Star”-studded?
That’s a stretch, isn’t it?
The people have spoken and voted, move on people.
another reason to hate hollywood
Exactly who is this video supposed to persuade? Or is it just entertainment for those already convinced Prop 8 was a bad idea (that is, the losers)?
Jack Black as a creepy pseudo-Jesus apparently appearing by way of some Star Trek transporter beam and spouting highly questionable Bible interpretation? Is that supposed to appeal to the 70% of African-American voters who voted for Prop 8? Does anyone even think Jack Black has ever READ the Bible? Is Mr. Black’s turn, and the whole video, supposed to convince fence sitters that proponents of gay marriage aren’t really trying to ram some kind of anti-Christian “gay agenda” down the state’s throat by undemocratic judicial fiat instead of democratic persuasion? Who thought this thing up?
And what’s with the bizarre “boo-hooo-how-can-anyone-vote-to-take-away-a-fundamental-right” argument? Prop 8 is certainly NOT the first time the initiative process has been used to strip away state constitutional rights deemed “fundamental” by the California supreme court. For example, California initiatives have narrowed fundamental state Constitutional rights of criminals and criminal defendants. Those very popular initiatives revised the California constitution to narrow specified state consitutional rights of criminals and criminal defendants so that those rights are no broader than the corresponding federal constitutional rights. The initiatives responded to the California Supreme Court cases expanding those fundamental state constitutional rights far beyond those guaranteed by the federal constitution. There are other examples. Denying that the initiative process has been used in the past to stip away or narrow state constitutional rights just makes one sound uneducated and ignorant of history.
One could go on and on. How stupid can Prop 8 opponents get? They seem determined to keep setting new records. Instead of counterproductive efforts like this video and the even more foolish ongoing attempt in the California Supreme Court to upset Prop 8 as a “revision” of the state constitution (which it obviously is not), Prop 8 opponents should focus on some reality: African American turnout, not Mormons, made the different in passing Prop 8. That means that if a NEW iniative REPEALING Prop 8 were placed on the ballot after a decent interval in an off-year election (where Obama’s presence on the ticket did not drive up African American turnout) it would likely pass.
But that would be a REAL solution. The people who made this video clearly aren’t interested in that kind of thing. Instead, they prefer dressing up for each other’s entertainment and sounding off about a bible most of them have neither read nor understood.
To Terry Hughes (and I’m hoping you’re not the famous Monty Python director as that would be disappointing),
You say that Prop 8 is clearly not a “revision” to the California State Constitution yet it is changing the Constitution to include language stating marriage is only between a man and a woman. A change to the Constitution is clearly a revision.
Secondly, you try to pass along the smear that African-American voters were somehow responsible for the outcome. This was a widespread myth after the election and has been shown to be false.
Prop 8 passed by more than half a million votes, and the number of black voters, even with turnout boosted by the presidential race, couldn’t have made up that difference.
Republicans and white churchgoers, among many other groups, voted for Prop. 8 at higher rates than African Americans (over 80%.)
So why single out African Americans? When it is the religious right who is to blame?
This includes:
Conservative evangelical leaders who were unremittingly hostile to the rights of gay people and who put Prop. 8 on the ballot and bombarded pastors, churchgoers, and the public with lies about gay people wanting to destroy their religious liberty and come for their children – even suggesting that Christian leaders would be thrown in jail if Prop 8 passed.
And Mormon Church leaders who turned Prop. 8 into a national religious crusade against gay couples, badgered Mormons nationwide to give heavily to the campaign, and recruited thousands of foot-soldiers for door-to-door canvassing (and yes, there were courageous Mormons who challenged the Church leadership.)
To Chris Cole:
You state, “…the insistence of a particular group that the semantics be determined by a minority rather than a lawful majority, is in fact, anti-democratic.”
The courts are there to protect the civil right of MINORITY groups, not the majority. Even if that means overturning a law that the majority voted in favor of.
A majority of voters in Kansas were not in favor of integrating schools and were content with the separate but equal tradition. It took the courts to rule in favor of the minority and overturn these laws. Are you really arguing that Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka should have gone the other way because it was more democratic to keep schools segregated as the majority wanted? Perhaps you feel African-American schoolchildren should have had to wait another generation or two so that the majority of voters could be convinced that their bigoted way of thinking was actually quite unfair?
And no, I’m not trying to say the fight for gay marriage has been anywhere s painful as the openly violent resistance to ending segregation in this country — lynchings, church bombings, the murder and maiming of people trying to register voters, etc. — the fact remains that the courts have overturned the will of the majority in favor of the civil rights of the minority before, and could do so again in this case. It’s an American tradition. And I feel a great one.
It’s always “mob mentality” when the people speak as a whole against liberal dogma, and “democracy at work” when things go the libs’ way.
Hate to break it to you: but the main target of the gay activists’ rage — straight, religious whites — didn’t kill their proposition. It was two traditional wings of the liberal agenda: blacks and hispanics. Read the polling data — they both voted overwhelming against it.
@Terry Hughes – you are certainly correct. This isn’t the first incident of “idiocy by ballot”. “Megan’s law” is just as crazy and completely counterproductive. Kids aren’t safe unless they’re supervised, so supervise them, ferchrissakes, it’s your job. Then it doesn’t matter if the perp in your neighborhood already has a record — or not.
RE: same-sex marriage and prop 8. Disheartening to see that even *after* prop 8 folx still have questions/no clue that equality is a thing of the future. Disheartening.
RE: Obama on prop 8. Proponents did a fine job misrepresenting Obama’s position by quoting only half of what he said and leaving out the important parts. Seeing that the mainstream forms opinions based on media soundbites, that’s what you get.
And that’s also why democracy *does not mean* that the majority rules and should decide about every single issue that may not concern them. It’s supposed to *protect* minorities and reduce discrimination.
Shame on those African-Americans who voted Yes on prop 8. How long has it been, 41 years since Loving v. Virginia? Boy, if that had been on a ballot… Lots of African-Americans would have voted NO on that one as well (and some still would, I guess, Lakeview Terrace anyone?). That’s exactly why it makes no sense whatsoever to put certain things on ballots.
BTW – Seattle has shown that you may let the people vote, but then you may decide to ignore the results, should they not be to your liking (stadium). So how about it? Ignorance is, after all, bliss.
Now things may be different in California, but I thought that once a matter was voted on, then it’s settled. That is if there’s any such thing as the rule of law.
I can understand when a court finds a law unconstitutional. That’s the court’s job. But when the people vote to amend the constitution and the losing side doesn’t like the result, can the court find the state constitution unconstitutional?
I guess that’s why despite how much I love California, I could never move there because I’d have to pay state taxes to support a court system that can’t convict anyone who’s rich nor uphold the results of a fair election. Seems like you don’t get a lot of bang for your highly taxed buck out there.
I think this video is completely adorable and entertaining. I also think it trivializes this issue and makes it look like the anti-Prop 8 faction does not want to be taken seriously at all. Marc Shaiman needs to STFU. First he forces Scott Eckern out of his job for his political and religious beliefs, now he’s throwing political punches via Funny or Die. It was a bad call, Shaiman, it was a bad call.
It’s unfortunate, the group expressing views leaning toward “hate” (and the like) are the opponents of Prop 8. I’ve yet to see any media/materials of Prop 8 proponents in which opponents are mocked and caricatured to such ridiculous extremes.
Prop 8 opponents are not gathering/winning real support with any of these post-election antics.
This entire issue is ironic.
Chris Cole–
Civil Unions do not afford the same legal rights as marriage. There’s over 1000 rights that a married couple is granted that civil unions do not.
Also (not directed at Chris Cole) but the Mormons were very much involved in this campaign, with over 20 million dollars pouring in from it’s members. They won this fight based on vicious lies using children among other things to scare people. That is the outrage. The lies and demonization of gay people.
I don’t expect Hollywood nonbelievers to understand the Bible, and I do expect them to mock Christians at every opportunity. But let’s be frank – many black congregations do not support gay marriage, nor do conservative Jews, nor do Muslims. But I didn’t see any of them among the proselytizers in the skit – typical Hollywood stereotyping from the people who celebrate free speech and diversity.
Kaaching! This video is already saving me money. I was going to buy the Tropic Thunder BluRay disc but seeing Jack Black in this video dissuaded me from ever purchasing a ticket to any movie or buying a disc featuring any of these twits.
To judge from the responses here to my earlier post, it seems we have an answer to my basic question: “Exactly who is this video supposed to persuade?”
And that answer is, as I suspected, that is it just entertainment for those already convinced Prop 8 was a bad idea (that is, the losers) and not to persuade nobody at all.
Pathetic. What a waste of time, money and talent.
the dishonesty came in the way the Mormons and their cohorts essentially made their case-
much was made of the of the sanctity of marriage and all that jazz, and yet these people do nothing to fight the divorce rate or the fact that you can get a shot-gun wedding in Las Vegas on a whim.
the fact of the matter is with conservatives, (and I have to admit liberals as well) the motives preceed the argument.
Some Book-o-Mormon beating multi-wife-havin wearing his special moron church underwear (yes they have them!) decided that he didn’t like the gay couple living on his block and that there was no way he was gonna let them be married any day.
I mean when it’s all said and done who the hell cares really?
I say the GVT should get out of the marriage biz and just give everyone a civil union with power of attorney; leave the god stuff to the churches.
… btw the Bible does say the things they mentioned, and yes the holier than though neo-cons do choose to ignore them- it’s easier that way- cuz it also says in the good book that you should give up all your earthly possessions b/c the G man will provide for you….
but when your real motive is power, who the hell cares about details.
Hey, Nikki:
Shouldn’t the headline read more like your snarky anti-Al-Franken-for-Senate video post?
D-LIST ACTORS DISS RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND OBAMA-NATION BLACKS
Toldja,
Ellsworth M. Toohey
The singling out of Mormons, and the hateful nature of the ongoing anti-Mormon boycott, is not coincidental. Prop. 8 is being used as an excuse to vent pent-up anger at the Mormon Church, and the traditional lifestyle of Mormons. With each passing day, it seems that the web is filled with more and more hate speech directed at Mormons. As others have noted, the attacks on Mormons would not be tolerated if directed at other religious or ethnic groups.
I am not a Mormon. But it is hard to imagine anything more counterproductive to gay rights than for gay advocates to engage in activities that legitimize any form of group-hate. And that is exactly what they are doing right now.
What is most disturbing is that there has been complete silence from groups that normally defend religious freedom.
As I noted above: How stupid can Prop 8 opponents get? They seem determined to keep setting new records.
To Chris Cole:
“It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger: and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of their condition to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves, so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.”
Federalist 51