No Boycott: Queer Lounge To Return To Utah's Sundance Film Festival

GLAAD will again sponsor the Queer Lounge at next month's Sundance Film Festival.

Despite calls for a Utah boycott, the Queer Lounge will return to Park City in January for the Sundance Film Festival. Noting their displeasure with the LDS Church for its efforts to ban same-sex marriage, leaders with lounge sponsor Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation say the festival is too important to pass up. "For many [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered] filmmakers, Sundance is their single most important opportunity to ensure their stories about our community reach a broad audience," said Neil G. Giuliano, GLAAD president. "And they are not in a position to stay away from that opportunity."

Activists, columnists and bloggers raised the spectre of boycott when it was learned the LDS Church provided significant financial and other support to the successful campaign to pass California's Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. "We continue the Queer Lounge," Giuliano said, "with a desire not to be rendered silent or invisible."

Park City Mayor Dana Williams welcomed the return of the Queer Lounge and said his town shouldn't be lumped in with those opposing same-sex marriage. The mayor hopes gays and lesbians won't stay away from Sundance or Utah ski vacations. "I don't treat anybody any differently, no matter their race, creed, color or sexual orientation," he said. "That is indicative of this community."