Persecution of FREE THINKING by the RELIGIOUS RIGHT!

[JRob]

I’ve been following the production of a film about persecution of individuals by the Religious right in the Midwest. I do not have any affiliation with the film but it’s about one of my big issues (religious oppression of free thinking and their hypocrisy):

“HEART of the BEHOLDER is a film Based on a True Story - Mike and Diane Howard opened the first videocassette rental store in St. Louis in 1981 and were eventually targeted by a religious group called the Citizens For Decency for renting movies such as Taxi Driver, Agnes of God, Blazing Saddles, Animal House, Mr. Mom, SPLASH, and many more. When Martin Scorsese's controversial film, The Last Temptation of Christ, was released on video, the Howard’s' were the only stores in St. Louis to carry the film. The CFD declared war with pickets and boycotts. Death threats were made against their daughter.”

http://www.beholder.com/index_fl.htm

They’ve had a lot of challenges but the film is done. Below is a -snip- from they’re latest email:

“It's been 12 days since we made our film available and out of 25,649 Fan Club members we sent emails to, we sold 91 DVDs. What this tells us is that a large number of our members are religious lurkers, which makes sense because every time we do an emailing, we get thousands of harassing emails back filled with viruses. It's also a known fact that motivating freethinkers is like herding cats. We love our independent thinking and it's that same free thinking attitude that keeps us from effectively organizing like religious groups do. Regardless, we will continue to educate through entertainment by making more films.”

They are attempting to market the movie online because they have yet to find a distributor that will take on the movie. Below is a comment made by one distribution executive:

"BEHOLDER was not what I expected and better than most films I've seen at Sundance. But you have no big celebrity championing your movie and distributors want to see "movie stars" in your cast - not TV stars, even though they did a great job. Your biggest problem is the conservative climate that has taken over the country. No distributor has the balls to take a chance on a controversial movie at this time. You have to prove there is a market for your movie. Be the first indie movie to sell 100,000 DVDs on your own and distributors will be calling you."

I guess we have the right to Free Speech as long as it’s not to the general public…

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Kick

so I can bring it up again when I get home.

I remember the controversy - didn't know it had been taken so far.

[JRob]

2. sounds pretty nasty, can't wait to see the film... nt

[Kerrytravelers]

3. kick

[NMMNG]

4. Persecution of the free thinking by the religious right is nothing new

It is when the free thinking try to defend themselves that you hear of this new thing called "Christian-persecution" or "anti-Christian bigotry".

It's a load of crap designed to turn the aggressors into victims.

[JRob]

5. EXACTLY ! ! ! These fanatics are on the OFFENSIVE ! ! !

and they have been for years... Look at the recent assaults on Disney and Ford, Stem Cells, Abortion, hell look at the last election. They're a highly motivated group of mindless zombies that take their marching orders as the gospel and act in force.

The people leading this group can drop a dime and generate millions of calls, emails and letter to a given target.

I'd love to see Progressive and Dem's develop this ability.