Leave Kirby Alone

Bob Lonsberry - Daily column
Bob's Daily Column
Monday 06-16-2008 11:08pm MT

I like Kirby Heyborne.

Personally and professionally, I think he's a great guy.

But some folks have been busting on him lately, and though he's too polite to tell them to shut up, I'm not.

Who is he? Kirby Heyborne is probably the most popular actor in Mormon movies. It is a niche industry, making pictures that show primarily in Utah and Idaho, with the occasional foray into California and Arizona.

They're small budget, and they're not always the same quality that comes out of Hollywood, but they serve well a small and specialized market.

And I like them. And I especially like Kirby.

He is a perpetually twenty-something guy with a mop of blonde hair and an innocence and a purity that actually are pretty accurate representations of who he really is.

In the mind of the Mormon-movie public, Kirby is well known and well identified. He is almost the poster boy for the genre.

But he is more than that. Though viewers of Mormon movies might not realize it, he hasn't made much money off his work in the films and they are not the focus of his career. As to money, these are not like nationally released movies. Nobody gets rich off these. Essentially, the Mormon movies have been his summer jobs.

Full time, he's in California, trying to make a living as an actor and musician in Hollywood. That's where his family is, and that's where his life is, and that's where he's got to pay the bills.

And that's where he decided to do the beer commercial.

Early this spring, as the writers' strike raged on and an actors' strike threatened to follow hard on its heels meaning months and months of unemployment for people in the entertainment industry Kirby got an offer to do a beer commercial.

He didn't have to drink beer in the commercial, but he did have to be in a commercial intended to sell beer.

The problem is: Mormons don't drink.

The dilemma was: Should Mormons advertise drinking?

Kirby decided to make the commercial. It paid enough to get his family through the year. It probably paid more than any of the Mormon movies he has made.

But it ticked some people off.

Unfortunately, some of them wrote pretty nasty letters to Kirby. One student journalist wrote in a college newspaper that he had abandoned both his fans and his integrity. Many said that Kirby was a bad example, that he had embarrassed his church and let down its members, especially the young.

That all is, of course, a bunch of crud.

And while Kirby is too polite and meek to say so, I'm not.

The people who have condemned him are a pack of self-righteous, judgmental prigs with a bad case of beam in the eye. They have stuck their noses, and their condemnation, where it doesn't belong.

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Brigham Young said that each man holds the keys of his vocation. That means that there is one person on Earth who God is going to talk to about what Kirby does for a living and that is Kirby. He is a church-going man who prays every day to be able to support his family and sustain his career, and an offer came which might have actually been an answer to those prayers and he felt good about it.

That means it's none of anybody else's business.

In the Mormon world, if Kirby crossed some line, there's a system to point that out to him. It involves his bishop and his stake president. It doesn't include anybody else. It doesn't include holier-than-thou editorialists and it certainly doesn't include people who tracked down his e-mail just to cuss him out.

What is astounding is that, even if Kirby's role in the beer commercial was out of line, nowhere is anyone justified in angrily condemning him. If people seriously believe that he compromised his faith, the Christian commandment is to respond with an increase of love and concern. The object would be to bring the prodigal back, not to spurn him further away.

Jesus told people to judge as they would want to be judged, and to forgive as they would want to be forgiven.

There is nothing of that in the criticism of Kirby Heyborne.

And that is a shame. It is also a greater offense than being in a beer commercial. Maybe these people who are so bothered by his role in the commercial should have a heart to heart with the person in the mirror about how they are supposed to treat other people.

Personally, I don't know if I would have done the commercial. Personally, I'm glad I didn't have to make the choice and I'm glad that my job gives me a steady paycheck. Personally, I'm going to trust Kirby to run his own life and I'm going to have confidence that he knows how to do that better than anyone else does.

And personally I'm going to tell all these first-stone throwers to shut their yap. I'm going to tell them to mind their own business. There are bars in Marriott hotels, Steve Young played football on Sundays, good Mormons sometimes employ illegal aliens, and Kirby Heyborne made a beer commercial.

In the words of Brigham Young, the Mormon motto is, Mind your own business.

Because you're reading this guy wrong. He is good hearted, he is loving, he lives the gospel, and he is raising his family faithfully in the church.

I like Kirby Heyborne.

And people who bash him over this silly commercial are wrong.