Gay rights took a huge hit this week in California with the passing of Proposition 8, the banning of gay marriage. Now, opponents of Prop 8 are fighting back with a boycott on Utah and the Sundance Film Festival.
That’s because many believe the Mormon Church, with world headquarters in Utah, poured significant funds into a campaign to pass the proposition. By avoiding the huge draws like skiing, red rock country and Robert Redford’s prestigious Sundance, gay rights supporters could put a dent in the state’s $6 billion a year tourism industry.
“At a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line on this one,” gay rights activist John Aravosis, an influential Washington, D.C-based blogger, told the Associated Press. “They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards. You don’t do that and get away with it.”
While Aravosis calls Utah a “hate state,” Scott McCoy, an openly gay state senator from Salt Lake City told the AP, “Rather than a boycott, I would rather have every gay person in the country come to Utah and show the people of Utah what genuine wonderful people and families we have, and to help educate them that we deserve the exact same legal rights and protections they and their families are afforded under the law.”
