Documentarian rejects Scientology objection

[Ubiquitous]

Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

Alex Gibney, writer and director of Going Clear: Scientology and the
Prison of Belief, has heard plenty of objections to the film, which
alleges abuse and other transgressions, from those connected with the
Church of Scientology.

He has "gotten a lot of cards and letters from members, from attorneys
representing the church, from publicists, from lawyers of other
individuals, like Tom Cruise," who is Scientology's most famous member,
documentarian Gibney tells USA TODAY in advance of the film's TV
premiere Sunday (HBO, 8 p.m. ET/PT).

The two-hour documentary, which premiered in January at the Sundance
Film Festival and is based on the book by Pulitzer Prize winner
Lawrence Wright, features eight former Scientologists, including
filmmaker Paul Haggis (Crash), actor Jason Beghe (Chicago P.D.) and two
one-time high-ranking members, who "describe the systematic history of
abuse and betrayal by Church officials, including the current
leadership of the Church," according to an HBO description.

The church castigates Gibney and his film on the website of its
Freedommagazine, referring to the former as HBO's "Doctor of
Propaganda" and the latter as a one-sided work that glorifies the
"stale, discredited allegations" of former members it calls "admitted
perjurers, admitted liars and professional anti-Scientologists." A
separate letter to HBO refers to the film's "egregious falsehoods and
inaccuracies."

Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw says the church first heard from
Gibney last October, adding that he had been working on the film for
two years before he requested an interview with church leader David
Miscavige. The church asked for an opportunity to address allegations
and also to know who was making them in order to provide the right
people to respond, but Gibney refused the request, she says.

At Christmastime, Pouw says that Gibney's attorney said he would accept
information from people with first-hand knowledge but that follow-up
letters were ignored.

Scientology then brought 25 people to New York in January to answer the
film's allegations, including "the children, former spouses, superiors
and colleagues who worked for years alongside his sources. He wouldn't
see them," Pouw says. Those people could have "refuted the propaganda-
like lies in the book and the film. But the truth is, Gibney didn't
care. He was never interested in being fair and he didn't want to hear
anything that would undercut his bigoted theories."

USA TODAY

Scientology doc 'Going Clear': Five takeaways
Pouw says Gibney, for publicity purposes, was only interested in
speaking to Miscavige, two top movie stars (Cruise and John Travolta
are among the most famous Scientologists) and another parishioner.
Miscavige, accused of abusing people and misuse of power in the film,
rarely does interviews.

Gibney says he has not seen any church objections to the film that he
considers legitimate and that he repeatedly sought interviews with "key
people" connected to the church but was not given the opportunity to
speak to them. He rejected the church's offer of the 25 interview
subjects.

"Very late in the game, long after I was trying to get interviews with
the people who were directly relevant to my story, they said, 'We're
sending 25' – unidentified – 'people to meet with you.' Their purpose
was not to elucidate the sections of the story I was interested in
(but) simply to smear the individuals who are in the film. Indeed, many
of those people who were sent have subsequently threatened some of the
people in the film," he says. "That struck me as a kind of phony
gesture."

Gibney, an Academy Award winner for 2007's Taxi to the Dark Side, says
Clear has been "rigorously checked" by his and HBO's lawyers and that
no lawsuits have been filed related to the film. He says the church has
intimidated the media in the past, pointing to a lawsuit Scientology
filed against Time magazine after a 1991 article.

Even though the church's case was dismissed, "They regarded that in
some ways as a victory, because I think it was the most expensive libel
litigation suit for a media company in history and it has cast a pall
over media organizations. I know a lot of other Scientology films fell
by the wayside because nobody wanted to run the financial risk and
that's just how Scientology wants it," he says. "HBO has been
tremendously supportive and I think you can see that the ability of
Scientology to bully people into silence is ending."

USA TODAY

Scientology doc 'Going Clear' shocks Sundance filmgoers
Gibney hopes Going Clear "stands the test of time, because it's a film
that raises questions about human behavior and digs deep into how and
why we act the way we do."

The film suggests "a couple of options that would be hugely important,"
he says, including having celebrity members "raise their voices,
particularly Tom Cruise, and at least address the accusations of abuse,
if not directly counter them."

Another would be for the Internal Revenue Service to reassess
Scientology's tax-exempt religious status.

"It's hard for me to understand how it is that you and I effectively
subsidize the Church of Scientology by allowing them to take tax-
deductible donations in order to be able to go hire private detectives
to harass and intimidate people, to coerce children to sign billion-
year contracts which effectively consign them to permanent servitude,
to threaten people with the loss of their homes, to practice this
policy of disconnection that destroys families. Why is that considered
a charitable activity? I don't get that."

On its website, the church discusses disconnection, or stopping
communication with a person, as a last resort in dealing with people
"antagonistic" to Scientology, but it says there is no policy
requirement that members do so.

--
So to recap:
Iraq is imploding
Measels is spreading
Russia is expanding
The US is being invaded
Vets are dying
IRS is lying
And Obama is diligently working on his brackets
http://www.jonmcnaughton.com/obama-foreign-policy/