Philanthropy
Bastian has always been a major donor to Utah's cultural arts. Among these is the Bastian Foundation Diversity Lecture Series at Westminster College, Salt Lake City. Somewhere along the way, “philanthropy transitioned to activism”. Bastian contributed half of the Don't Amend Alliance's budget for fighting Utah's constitutional amendment defining marriage as between only a man and a woman. (The amendment passed in 2004.)
A native of Twin Falls, Idaho, he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints(LDS), served as a Mormon missionary in Italy, married in the LDS temple and had a family prior to coming out and later becoming a social activist for gay rights.
He is a member of the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the U.S.'s largest Gay and Lesbian political action committee, and was grand marshal of the Utah Pride Festival's parade in 2004.
On July 26, 2008 at the San Francisco Human Rights Campaign dinner, Bastian announced he was donating $1 million to HRC, designated to fight California Proposition 8 (2008), which eliminated same-sex marriage in California. He was the first individual to pledge such a large amount to fight the proposition. Ironically, his former business partner, Alan Ashton, gave $1 million to support Proposition 8.
He is the executive producer of 8: The Mormon Proposition, a film about the LDS church's involvement in California Proposition 8 (2008) and For The Bible Tells Me So. He was also the first major donor to the National Equality March.
In 2010, in honor of Bastian's long term commitment to the arts, President Obama appointed him to the Presidential Advisory Committee of the Arts.
Read more about this topic: Bruce Bastian
Famous quotes containing the word philanthropy:
“I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... the hey-day of a woman’s life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)