From Plano, Texas $9,999 traveled thousands of miles, making its way to California in support of Proposition 8, the ban for same-sex marriage. The money came from Alan Stock, the CEO of Cinemark, which owns theater chains such as CineArts and Century. An openly gay man who would of fought against the passing of Proposition 8 was Harvey Milk. Harvey Milk was a gay rights activist and the first openly gay elected politician in California. During the 1970’ s with the love movement and hippies scattered around San Francisco’s city, there was still a big fear of homosexuality. In his memorable “Hope Speech” on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots he spoke among hundreds of thousands of people whom traveled across the country hearing him say:

“On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country … We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets … We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.”

Milk has become a legendary figure for the LGBTQ community as well as those who believe in equality. And recently, Gus Van Hunt directed “Milk”, a film based on the life of Harvey Milk, who is played by none other than Sean Penn.

On December 5th, 2008 in San Jose the only theater that will be showing the film Milk is a CineArts theater, which is hypocritical to the beliefs of those who’ve supported Proposition 8. To show a film based on a legendary gay activist fighting for gay rights after donating money to take away gay rights doesn’t make sense.

Harvey Milk once said on a recording he’d done just in the case he was murdered, “I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves.” I wonder what he would think that a company that put up money to stop gay marriage would at the same time profit from a movie on his life.
—G. Melesaine