Cooler Heads Prevail

Adam Feldman has an extremely thoughtful Time Out blog post about the Eckern affair, in which he deplores the furious backlash against supporters of California's Prop. 8 as counter to the inclusive traditions of the theater, not to mention counterproductive to the same-sex marriage cause. In the process, Feldman also reveals Christine Ebersole of Grey Gardens fame to be a particularly spicy flavor of wingnut (9/11 "truth" and the amero? Wow).

His conclusion:

It seems to me that in judging whether someone is a bigot, we must be fair-minded about people’s differences, however silly or repugnant we may find them. Do Ebersole’s opinions make me think less of her as a person? Yes, they do. But she has a right, up to a point, to be wrong. And so did Eckern. Those of us who disdain their views must work to change their minds and resist the temptation to merely purge them from our programs. The theater world was a refuge, in the 1950s, for actors and writers blacklisted from Hollywood. That is a tradition worth keeping alive: the decency of the left.