While you were home this summer flipping burgers, painting houses and watching “Jerry Springer” (it’s OK – we all do), a quiet controversy rippled through the NIU community. Your friendly neighborhood multiplex – the GKC Market Square Cinemas – wouldn’t show the summer’s most controversial film. But don’t throw popcorn at the guy in the ticket booth the next time you’re there; this decision came from higher up.

I’m not here to be an apologist for Michael Moore or his movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.” He’s neither the monster his worst critics assert nor the angel his staunchest defenders insist. But this isn’t about Moore or his politics. It’s about a corporation deciding what you should and should not see. If Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity had made a movie, I’d hope that people could choose to view it (or, more likely, not to).

That’s not the way GKC Theatres President Beth Kerasotes sees things, however. While generously acknowledging Moore’s freedom to make the film, Kerasotes told the “Mining Journal,” a Michigan-based publication, that GKC was exercising its freedom not to show the film.

“During a time of war,” she said, “the American troops in Iraq need and deserve our undivided support.”

Huh?

I’ve seen the movie. It’s critical of many things, including the government, President George W. Bush and the media. And it shows American troops in many ways – some flattering and some not. But at no time does it not support them.

In fact, at the film’s end, Moore’s voice-over says of the troops: “They serve so that we don’t have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us.”

Wow, way to not support the troops, Mr. Moore. Wouldn’t want that type of treacherous talk sinking morale.

Adding to the ridiculousness of GKC’s decision not to play the film on any of its 260-plus screens in 24 cities (although it did sneak onto one in Traverse City, Mich.) is the claim on its Web site that “GKC Theatres is committed to the communities we serve, and strive [sic] to offer a sophisticated entertainment environment.”

How committed are you to a university community – one that values differing points of view – when you show masterpieces like “Catwoman” but censor a politically controversial film and disguise it as support for our troops?

Our university isn’t the only community losing to GKC’s Big Brotherhood. In Illinois alone, GKC also has theaters (not) serving the University of Illinois in Champaign and three in Bloomington-Normal near Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan.

Inevitably, “Fahrenheit” did get a DeKalb run. To its credit, Campus Cinemas picked it up in August, several weeks after its June release.

But that doesn’t let GKC off the hook for shirking its ethical responsibility to serve university communities at NIU and elsewhere. The same students, teachers and residents who shell out hard-earned book and beer money to see the latest Tom Cruise action flick should have the choice to see a film in a different vein if they wish. At any rate, they’ve earned the right to decide for themselves.

After all, isn’t the freedom from someone controlling what we see as one of the liberties our troops are supposedly fighting for?

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.