Karina on SpoutBlog

I had heard a rumor about this earlier this morning, but Mike Jones at The Circuit is the first to confirm it: Rich Raddon has resigned from his post as the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. Raddon, who is a practicing Mormon, first submitted his resignation last week, when it was revealed that he had made sizable donationto the campaign in support of California’s anti-gay-marriage Propositon 8. The FIND Independent board who govern LAFF chose not to accept the resignation, but instead met, talked it out and took no action. The conversations calling out Raddon for putting his money where his beliefs are did not stop, and when Raddon submitted his resignation again last night, LAFF accepted it.

The last thing I want to do is to get into an ideological argument about this, and have thus far largely stayed away from commenting on Prop 8 and the ensuing protests for that reason. I know that many close to this situation, like me, saw the Raddon quandry as a lose-lose for everyone involved. I wouldn’t have supported Prop 8 had I still been registered in California, but that doesn’t mean I can necessarily support the bullying that drives someone away from thier job (and potentially ruins their career) over their religious beliefs. And as Peter Knegt noted in a recent blog post, if this is really about Mormons and money, why aren’t the same people rallying against Raddon and pushing a Sundance boycot also boycotting Twilight?