going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

with 52 percent of the state’s voters. “When can we expect the public statement?” Davis
responded with a proposed letter that would go to the San Diego media, saying that the
church had been “erroneously listed among the supporters of Proposition 8.”
“ ‘Erroneous’ doesn’t cut it,” Haggis red back. “The church may have had the luxury of
not taking a position on this issue before, but after taking a position, even erroneously,
it can no longer stand neutral.” He demanded that the church openly declare itself in
favor of gay rights. “Anything less won’t do.”
Davis stopped responding. When Haggis prodded him again, Davis admitted that the
correction to the San Diego media was never actually sent. “To be honest I was
dismayed when our emails (which I thought were communications between us) were
being cc’d to your daughters,” he wrote. Davis was frustrated because, as he explained
to Haggis, the church avoids taking political stances. 1 Davis insisted that it wasn’t the
“church” in San Diego that adopted a position against Prop 8. “It was one guy who
somehow got it in his head it would be a neat idea and put Church of Scientology San
Diego on the list,” Davis insisted. “When I found out, I had it removed from the list.”
As far as Davis was concerned, that should have been the end of the matter. Any
further actions on the part of the church would only call attention to a mistaken
position on an issue that the church wanted to go away. “Paul, I’ve received no press
inquiries,” he said. “If I were to make a statement on this it would actually bring more
attention to the subject than if we leave it be.”
But Haggis refused to let the matter drop. “This is not a PR issue, it is a moral issue,”
he wrote in February 2009. “Standing neutral is not an option.”
In the nal note of this exchange, Haggis conceded, “You were right: nothing
happened—it didn’t flap—at least not very much. But I feel we shamed ourselves.”
Since Haggis’s children had been copied on the correspondence with Davis, it helped
clarify Lauren’s stance with the church. At rst, Davis’s responses gave her hope, but
then she realized, “They’re just trying to minimize it as much as possible.” After that, “I
was totally done with the church.”
The experience also helped her to see her father in a dierent light. “It’s like night
and day from when I rst moved in with him,” she said. “I didn’t know that my dad
loved me.”
BECAUSE HAGGIS STOPPED COMPLAINING, Davis felt that the issue had been laid to rest. But, far
from putting the matter behind him, Haggis began an investigation into the church. His
inquiry, much of it conducted online, echoed the actions of the lead character he was
writing for Russell Crowe in The Next Three Days, who goes on the Internet to research a
way to break his wife out of jail.
What is so striking about Haggis’s investigation is that few prominent gures attached
to the Church of Scientology have actually looked into the charges that have surrounded
their institution for many years. The church discourages such examination, telling its
members that negative articles are “entheta” and will only cause spiritual upset. In
1996, the church sent CDs to members to help them build their own websites, which