Political Causes
In 2008, CEO Alan Stock donated $9,999 toward the successful passage of California's Proposition 8, an initiative restricting the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples and overturning the California Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. An ensuing campaign, launched by opponents to the Prop 8 passage, encouraged patrons to see the Gus Van Sant film Milk, starring Sean Penn in the title role of gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, at a competing theater in protest. Others called for a more general boycott.
Cinemark was the largest contributor to Richard Mourdock's 2012 Indiana Senatorial campaign. During a live debate, Mourdock was asked if abortion should be legal in the case of rape and incest. Mourodck replied: "And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.". In the ensuing brouhaha, Cinemark did not ask its campaign contribution be returned or disassociate itself with Mourdock or his views.
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Famous quotes containing the word political:
“It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behaviour perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)