Milk and California Politics

Milk, director Gus Van Sant’s film about one of the first openly gay men elected to public office in the United States, has yet to arrive in my city, but the advance word is very good (much of the talk has now turned toward the film's serious Oscar chances).

That a film about an openly gay man is sparking raves is encouraging in that its acclaim may (I hope) foster, in certain quarters, a more open-minded outlook on gay and lesbian rights. The film currently has a 93% ‘freshness’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and has scored an 86% rating on Metacritic.

The film’s opening, coincidentally, comes on the heels of California’s infamous Prop 8 – the passage of which has led to much turmoil and uncertainty for gay couples.

One dimly positive aspect of all of this (if indeed there can even be a positive side to the prop’s passage) is that it has led to some lengthy and very public discussions of the discriminatory nature of Prop 8 - discussions that might help to convince some people that the prop needs to be overturned in court.

Anyway. Found a couple of interesting blog entries that concern one specific incident of Prop 8’s fallout. There is a good deal of interesting, and impassioned, discussion in the comments sections. One blog entry is from Indiewire, and the other is from All These Wonderful Things, by A.J. Schnack.