I wonder if I am misunderstanding you here. Don’t get me wrong, Dutcher seems to be a pretty good dude (at least as far as I can tell from his public statements). But do you really think his work was good? I’ve seen God’s Army and Brigham City and that was enough for me. His movies, to me, lacked: production values, quality dialogue and accurate portrayals of the subject matter.
Like I said, I have absolutely nothing against the guy and wish him the best in his endeavors… maybe I am missing something about his talent as a filmmaker?

Among other things, the events in Virginia this week taught us, again, that none of us can ever really be sure of what’s going on in the hearts and minds of those around us. Some people deal in silence with burdens that are crushing them, unbeknownst to even their closest friends. It happens. Nobody should expect Dutcher to come out and give a full accounting of the road he’s been traveling down the last few months, or years, or hours, even, if he doesn’t want to.

This comment isn’t directed at anyone in particular, I just feel it’s a helpful thing to keep in mind.

An excellent observation, and one that needs to be repeated loudly and often in a society that is increasingly polarized. Perhaps some baby-boomers can answer a question that betrays my “youth” : were the ’60s this bad? Thank heavens my ‘chosen generation’ wasn’t deployed for another decade.

Ditto about Randy Taylor’s comment.

“What I see on the message boards is generally sympathetic, not derogatory. And you have to imagine that most true Christians are going to be content to remain quiet on Dutcher’s private decisions. But crazy people are louder, and hypocrites more obvious; they’ll condemn and flame and rant — and we all shake our heads in embarrassment that they’re part of our ‘fold’.”

I think this is so true–the crazy people can be SO loud and obnoxious, that it starts to seem like they are the majority and, even worse, the voice of the LDS church. Same goes for political parties and many other groups.