American cinema chain AMC Theatres has raised eyebrows by announcing it’s agreed to hold a one-off screening of the documentary Irreplaceable on May 6th, 2014. While that in itself wouldn’t be news, the doc is backed by Focus On The Family, an anti-gay group with a long history of nasty homophobia.
The documentary follows a man who sets out to discover whether his traditional marriage is now ‘meaningful or outdated’ (which as with so many conservative discussions of equal marriage, completely avoids the point). To do that he talks to people such as anti-gay Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, ex-gay advocate Dr. Miriam Grossman, and Prop 8 supporter Michael Medved. While the filmmaker is supposedly independent, as this is coming from Focus On The Family – a group that claims gay marriage harms children and who’ve attempted to have the ability to discriminate against gays enshrined in law – it’s safe to say it’s not going to come out in support of gay marriage.
It should be noted that this isn’t a film AMC has solicited, as they’re just hiring out the screens to FotF. Even so they are coming under pressure to cancel the screenings from what many consider to be a hate group.
It’ll be interesting to see how AMC reacts, as they have previously worked hard creating a diversity program and have a strong score from the Human Rights Council for treating their employees equally. Many suggest that as a supporter of gay rights (they even made an It Gets Better video) AMC shouldn’t be giving a platform to anti-equality groups, while others have said that while we might not like what FotF say, they should be allowed the space to say it – and then we can all roll our eyes at what idiots they are.
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