Animal-rights related film at Indie Film Fest

January 26, 2007

As part of the SF Indie (Film) Fest, a film called " Your Mommy Kills Animals "

will be showing at the Roxie Cinema in S.F., on February 19, 2007 at 7 PM.

Click the link for a description/review. http://www.sfindie.com/site/node/277

The Film Fest website: http://www.sfindie.com/site/event/2007/02/08/month/all/8

The film is described as being " even-handed " , but would anyone be interested in

contacting Indie Fest to see if there could be at least a short discussion or

panel or SOMETHING after the film? (I cannot volunteer for this,

unfortunately.) There is always a Q & A session after a film if the director or

producer of a film is present. The film showing after this one doesn't start

until 9:30, so there's at least 30-45 minutes before they have to let the

audience in for the next film (whatever that one may be, because that slot is a

TBA slot).

Just a thought. The issue of animal rights/free speech is particularly

interesting and relevant in light of the recent passage of the Animal Enterprise

Terrorism Act.

If you have any ideas, don't contact me -- I really can't do anything to help

organize such a thing. But I'll definitely be there!!

Nadine

January 30, 2007

I just read the description of the SF Indie Film movie, "Your Mommy Kills Animals," posted by Nadine I haven't seen the film, but from the description, the thesis seems to be that by exercising free-speech rights, animal rights advocates are threatening others' free-speech rights, who presumably have something more "important" to talk about. It concludes: "Your Mommy Kills Animals paints a dire portrait of the state of American civil liberties, but it also makes clear that the protesters outside Schumacher Furs [animal rights' protesters] not only are failing to save animals—they're not doing your freedom of speech any favors, either." The idea that one group is damaging the right to free speech by

speaking is patently ridiculous. The one threatening speech is the one urging others to self-censorship for fear the government will impose laws like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act on other movements. As Judge Berzon wrote in an opinion dissenting from a Ninth Circuit decision upholding the conviction of anti-abortion activists for "threatening" speech against abortion providers: "If we are not willing to provide stringent First Amendment protection and a fair trial to those with whom we as a society disagree as well as those with whom we agree -- as the Supreme Court did when it struck down the conviction of members of the Ku Klux Klan for their racist, violence-condoning speech in Brandenburg -- the First Amendment will become a dead letter. Moreover, the next protest group -- which may be a new civil rights movement or another group eventually vindicated by acceptance of

their goals by society at large -- will (unless we cease fulfilling our obligation as judges to be evenhanded) be censored according to the rules applied to the last."

Thea

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