A few days ago, I wrote a blog about how the movie September Dawn was being “shunned” in Color Country and Utah in general. The movie is a Hollywood version of the Mountain Meadow Massacre. It’s a chapter in history that Mormons would rather forget and they’ve been remarkably successful in doing that in the last century and a half.

In response to a comment about that blog, I wrote that, “The Mormon faithful will tell you that the LDS Church has said that it’s inaccurate as history but has made no other ‘official’ statement about it. They will say that theater owners and Mormons are free to show it and free to see it. And that’s true. But this ignores the way ‘the Church’ actually works.”

A great example of the “shunning” of another movie took place back in 2006 when Utah auto salesman (and Utah Jazz owner) Larry Miller pulled the Academy Award winning Brokeback Mountain from his theaters here in Utah.

The issue here is gay rights. On this particular issue, the “Church” does have an official position, as it turns out. This quote from Church President Gordon B. Hinckley can be found at the web site, LDS.org:

“We cannot stand idle if they indulge in immoral activity, if they try to uphold and defend and live in a so-called same-sex marriage situation. To permit such would be to make light of the very serious and sacred foundation of God-sanctioned marriage and its very purpose, the rearing of families.”

With this background in mind, I’m pleased to help announce a coming event in the Color Country town of Springdale, nestled among the magnificent towering cliffs of Zion National Park.

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The Southern Utah Pride will hold “Southern Utah Pride @ Zion” on September 28 and 29 at the Springdale Town Park. Pride festivities will be hosted by Nova Starr, known as Nova the Goddess on his web page. More information is available at:

 http://www.southernutahpride.org/index.html