Director Haggis Quits Scientology Over Prop 8

Lessons learned from last year's Prop 8 fight will need to be applied

(NEWSER) - For those who believe Hollywood came too late to California’s “No on Prop 8” party during last year’s election, yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the voter-approved ban on gay marriage brings a question: Will Tinseltown get it right this time around? “I think the message of today’s decision is we have to tone down the rhetoric and start building some bridges,” publicist Howard Bragman tells Variety. More»

Also talks Scientology in 'Playboy' interview

(NEWSER) - Tom Cruise promotes his upcoming musical Rock of Ages in the latest issue of Playboy , but not surprisingly, the movie talk isn’t getting quite as much attention as the quotes about Cruise’s personal life. Some highlights:

• On plastic surgery: "I haven't [gotten any], and I never would."
• On his PR nightmare: Asked what he learned from his controversial interview with Matt Lauer (in which he disparaged psychiatry and prescription drugs for post-partum depression) and his Oprah couch fiasco, Cruise replied, “When I go back and look at it, I find myself thinking, I don’t feel that way. I get how it came across, but I don’t feel that way, and I never have. Telling people how to live their lives? I saw how that came across and how pieces were edited.”

Apparently there's a lot of clay, and perhaps some grade inflation to boot

(NEWSER) - They grow up so fast: Suri Cruise’s first day of school—Scientology-flavored school—was last week. So what’s it like at the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California, which uses L. Ron Hubbard’s “study technology” educational system? Well, for one thing, there’s a lot of clay. Sculpting is apparently big at schools like this, Slate explains, because Hubbard said students are frustrated when they have no access to “mass,” or the physical presence of whatever object they’re studying. According to the official study technology website, without mass students feel, among other things, “sort of spinny” and “squashed.” Therefore, Suri will probably be encouraged to use clay to sculpt concepts she’s learning about. More»

Actor plans to make her a Scientologist

(NEWSER) - Just what Lindsay Lohan needs: a new religion! John Travolta has decided to take the troubled starlet under his wing and introduce her to Scientology, Showbiz Spy reports. Travolta and Lohan are both starring in an upcoming movie about the Gotti family , but LiLo only snagged her spot because Travolta promised to "keep her on the straight and narrow ... now and forever," in part by introducing her to his religion, a source says. More»

More from the New Yorker: 'Moral issue' finally breaks tie, screenwriter

(NEWSER) - More from the New Yorker's 26-page Scientology takedown: Screenwriter Paul Haggis finally broke with Scientology after years in the cult because of its stands against homosexuality, he has revealed. "I was in a cult for 34 years. Everyone else could see it. I don't know why I couldn't," he tells the New Yorker in its scathing criticism of the organization. He enjoyed Scientology's profound "feeling of camaraderie that was something I'd never experienced," he recalls. But he was first turned off after a San Diego staff member signed the church's name to a petition backing California's Prop. 8 banning gay marriage. More»