Editing Gene Kelly (section)

===Political and religious views===
Kelly was a lifelong supporter of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]. His period of greatest prominence coincided with the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy era]] in the US. In 1947, he was part of the [[Committee for the First Amendment]], the Hollywood delegation that flew to Washington to protest against the first official hearings which were held by the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]]. His first wife, Betsy Blair, was suspected of being a communist sympathizer, and when [[United Artists]], which had offered Blair a part in ''[[Marty (film)|Marty]]'' (1955), were considering withdrawing her under pressure from the [[American Legion]], Kelly successfully threatened MGM's influence on United Artists with a pullout from ''[[It's Always Fair Weather]]'' unless his wife was restored to the part.<ref name="Hirschhorn" /><ref name="Blair">{{cite book | last=Blair | first=Betsy | title=The Memory of All That | publisher=Elliott & Thompson | year=2004 | location=London | isbn=1-904027-30-X }}</ref> He used his position on the board of directors of the [[Writers Guild of America West]] on a number of occasions to mediate disputes between unions and the Hollywood studios.

He was raised as a [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and he was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in [[Beverly Hills, California]].<ref name="goodshepherdbh">{{cite web |url=http://www.goodshepherdbh.org/a-city-on-a-hill/our-history/ |title=Our History &#124; Church of the Good Shepherd |publisher=goodshepherdbh.org |access-date=May 18, 2015 |archive-date=January 2, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102204124/http://www.goodshepherdbh.org/a-city-on-a-hill/our-history/ |url-status=live }}</ref> After he became disenchanted with the Roman Catholic Church's support for [[Francisco Franco]]'s opposition to the [[Second Spanish Republic]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]],<ref name=ipkmpz>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_10_29/ai_n13807354/ |work=Catholic New Times |title=Gene Kelly: cultural icon |year=2005 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119075803/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_10_29/ai_n13807354/ |archive-date=January 19, 2012}}</ref> he officially severed his ties with the church in September 1939. This separation was prompted, in part, by a trip which Kelly took to Mexico in which he became convinced that the church had failed to help the poor in Mexico.<ref name=ipkmpz /> After his departure from the Catholic Church, Kelly became an [[Agnosticism|agnostic]], as he had previously described himself.<ref>Yudkoff, Alvin ''Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams'', Watson-Guptill Publications: New York, NY (1999) pp. 42, 59</ref>