“Milk,” in which Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected to office in a major city, has become a liberal rallying point. Even more so in the wake of California’s passage of Proposition 8, a statewide ban on gay marriage. Too bad the film doesn’t tell the complete story of Milk, whose early support for Barry Goldwater and later championing of gay small businessmen show how much common ground the libertarian right and the civil-rights left can have. Milk was a much more complicated figure than many people realize.

The film has become a focal point for liberal anger. Some of its fans have urged a nationwide boycott against Cinemark movie theaters after Cinemark CEO Alan Stock donated $10,000 to the “Yes on 8″ campaign. “He should not profit from now showing ‘Milk’ in his theaters,” says the boycott website. Penn himself used his Academy Award acceptance speech for Best Actor to lecture Prop 8 supporters that they can “anticipate their great shame and the shame in the eyes of their grandchildren if they continue.” (more…)