Kevin Smith was born and raised in Red Bank, New Jersey.
Smith was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school as a kid, and remains devout to this day.[1] And in fact, that's why he made the film Dogma, a religious satire about two fallen angels trying to get back into heaven. He said,
I always wanted to do something that celebrated or validated faith for someone of my age without seeming corny or hackneyed or a bunch of baloney.[2]
He knew he was going to offend old-school Catholics who wouldn't agree with his criticisms of the church–and his critics definitely made a stink–but his real goal was to reach his core audience of mostly secular young people. He figured he was taking a risk in alienating his fans with a religious film, but decided it was worth the risk since it was so important to get people talking about God.[3]
For Smith, questioning one's faith only strengthens it. He said,
Some people were raised during a time when they didn't question anything; every belief was arrived at through a blind leap of faith. I don't think asking questions is necessarily a bad thing. Asking questions shows a willingness to understand. Some people think asking questions is like looking for a way out.[4]
And he had his own phase of disillusionment with Catholicism in his 20s, feeling that the church was too focused on sinners and the fear of hell.[5] He said he's much more interested in the words of Jesus, the love he spread, and his good deeds than in all that negative stuff.[6] And who knows, he may have brought a few fans back from their own disillusionment, or at least got a few chuckles from the lapsed crowd.
The fairly conservative liberal
Even though Kevin Smith described himself as "actually fairly conservative,"[7] it seems that at least by American standards, he follows the liberal ticket. He praised Obama for his handling of the 2012 Hurricane Sandy disaster[8] and he showed his support for the president on election night a few days later with this tweet:
OHIO DID IT! Just now, @CNN projected the win for @BarackObama! Congratulations to the #POTUS as well as Democrats and Women everywhere![9]
But it seems that the issue dearest to the filmmaker's heart is gay rights. One of his goals in putting gay characters in his films, most notably in Chasing Amy, was to represent that underserved community on screen in honor of his own gay brother.[10] He said in one interview that he wants conservatives out of his brother's bedroom,[11] and he even officiated the wedding of a gay couple at a hockey game.[12]
Maybe he's fiscally conservative, or maybe he's socially conservative about other issues. He doesn't like to talk about politics all that much,[13] so we may never know. But I'm going to go with liberal Democrat until further notice.
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