Activism
Sheen has been active in numerous nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, and has been arrested 66 times demonstrating for numerous liberal causes. Although he did not attend college in his youth, Sheen credited the Marianists at University of Dayton as a major influence on his public activism, as well as Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Sheen is known for his outspoken support of liberal political causes, such as opposition to United States military actions and a hazardous-waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Sheen has dismissed calls for him to run for office, saying: "There's no way that I could be the President. You can't have a pacifist in the White House ... I'm an actor. This is what I do for a living." Sheen is an honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum.
He supported the 1965 farm worker movement with Cesar Chavez in Delano, California. Sheen endorsed marches and walkouts called by the activist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) to force the State of California to introduce a holiday in memory of Cesar Chavez. On the day of the protests (March 30), thousands of students, primarily Latino ones from California and elsewhere, walked out of school in support of the demand. Sheen has said he also participated in the large-scale immigration marches in Los Angeles in 2006 and 2007.
According to W. James Antle III, writing in The American Conservative, Sheen is a follower of the consistent life ethic, which opposes abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and war. Sheen articulated his view in an interview with The Progressive: "I'm inclined to be against abortion of any life. But I am equally against the death penalty or war." He also stated at the same occasion: "I personally am opposed to abortion, but I will not judge anybody else's right in that regard because I am not a woman and I could never face the actual reality of it." He also supports the Democrats for Life of America's Pregnant Women Support Act.
Sheen starred in Jakov Sedlar's religious drama Gospa in 1995. He also narrated several movies for the Croatian director during the 1990s.
In 1988, he was arrested outside the Israeli Defense Ministry offices in New York during a 30-minute rally protesting America's military alliance with Israel and condemning "the Israeli government's policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."
Sheen and Paul Watson (from the non-profit environmental organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) were confronted on May 16, 1995, by a number of Canadian sealers in a hotel on Magdalen Islands over Sea Shepherd's history of attacks on sealing and whaling ships. Sheen negotiated with the sealers while Watson was escorted to the airport by police. Sheen became involved with gun control in 2000 after the National Shooting Sports Foundation hired his politically conservative brother, actor Joe Estevez who sounds like Sheen, to do a voice-over for a pro-gunmaker commercial earlier in the year.
In 1997, Sheen volunteered his time to narrate the documentary film An Act of Conscience, which follows war tax resisters Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner, who, as a protest against war and military spending, openly refused to pay their federal income taxes, prompting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to seize their house.
In early 2003, Sheen signed the "Not in My Name" declaration opposing the invasion of Iraq (along with prominent figures such as Noam Chomsky and Susan Sarandon); the declaration appeared in the magazine The Nation. Sheen visited Camp Casey on August 28, 2005, to pray with anti-Iraq War activist Cindy Sheehan, who had demanded a second meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush. Addressing Sheehan's supporters, Sheen said: "At least you've got the acting president of the United States", referring to his role as president Josiah Bartlet on The West Wing.
During the 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he supported Senator Ted Kennedy and gave multiple speeches supporting him in Florida. Sheen endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson in the 1988 presidential election. Sheen campaigned for Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.
Sheen campaigned with Rob Reiner for Democratic presidential candidates Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004. Members of the Democratic Party in Ohio reportedly contacted Sheen in 2006 to persuade him to run for the United States Senate. Sheen declined the offer, stating, "I'm just not qualified. You're mistaking celebrity for credibility." In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Sheen initially endorsed New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and helped raise funds for his campaign. After Richardson dropped out of the campaign, Sheen supported Barack Obama.
In 2006, when Sheen was living in Ireland as a result of his enrollment in NUI Galway, he criticized Irish mushroom farmers for exploiting foreign workers by paying them as little as €2.50 an hour—way below the country's minimum wage of €7.65.
From 2008 to 2013, Sheen's activism included attendance at meetings of the environmentalist group Earth First! and speaking appearances at youth empowerment events called We Day on behalf of Free the Children, an international charity and educational partner. Sheen has been named an ambassador of Free The Children and has supported such initiatives as the We are Silent campaign, a 24-hour pledge of silence. Speaking about his work with Free The Children, Sheen has said, "I'm hooked! I told them whenever I could offer some insight or energy or whatever I had, I'd be delighted if they would call on me, and they have." Sheen championed Help Darfur Now, a student-run organization to help aid victims of the genocide in Darfur, the western region in Sudan. He also appeared in the 2009 anti-fur documentary Skin Trade.
Also in 2009, while walking the Camino de Santiago while filming the 2010 movie The Way, Sheen met Gary and Elizabeth Jewson, a married couple from Australia who had lost their 18-year-old daughter Melanie in a car accident in 2004. Inspired by the touching story of Melanie's ambitions prior to her untimely death, Sheen became a patron of the foundation when it launched in 2012, and it has since raised more than A$250,000 for helping serve Vanuatu's under-resourced health and education systems.
Sheen appeared in television and radio ads urging Washington state residents to vote "no" on Initiative 1000, a proposed assisted suicide law before voters in the 2008 election.
Sheen first spoke to 18,000 young student activists at Free The Children's 2010 We Day. "While acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive," he said.
On December 5, 2011, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Sheen met with Jon-Adrian Velazquez, now a legal reform activist who was wrongfully convicted for a 1998 murder of a retired police officer in Harlem. Velazquez was serving 25 years to a life prison sentence. Later that day, Sheen held a press conference at a Manhattan courthouse for Velazquez, advocating for his release. Sheen stated that the case "cries out for justice". After meeting Velazquez, Sheen said that it "confirmed my belief that Jon-Adrian Velazquez is an innocent man".
In March 2012, Sheen and George Clooney performed in Dustin Lance Black's play 8—a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage—as attorney Theodore Olson. The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. On March 30, 2012, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) completed a merger of equals forming a new union SAG-AFTRA. As a result of this merger, a group of actors including Sheen, fellow voice actors Michael Bell, Clancy Brown, Wendy Schaal, her former stepmother Valerie Harper, and other actors including former SAG President Edward Asner, Ed Harris, and Nancy Sinatra immediately sued against the current SAG President Ken Howard and several SAG Vice Presidents to overturn the merger and separate the (now merged) two unions because of their claims that the election was improper. The plaintiffs dropped their lawsuit several months later.
Sheen reunited with the cast of The West Wing in September 2012 to produce a video explaining Michigan's ballot and its partisan and nonpartisan sections. The video doubled as a campaign ad for Bridget McCormack, who was running as a nonpartisan candidate for Michigan's Supreme Court. McCormack's sister, actress Mary McCormack, co-starred with Sheen on The West Wing in its final three seasons.
Sheen wrote a foreword to Mark Lane's autobiography, Citizen Lane (2012). He has credited Lane's book Rush to Judgment (1966) with having "inspired my own thoughts of activism and thus changed my life". When the film Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain premiered in 2014, Sheen advocated for Amnesty International's campaign Justice for Bhopal.
Sheen narrated the trailer for a proposed documentary film about the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman in 2015.
Sheen narrated the feature-length documentary film based on the Peter Navarro book Death by China, released in 2012. The documentary was financed by Nucor steel corporation, and has been endorsed by Donald Trump.
Sheen donated $1,000 to Irish political party Sinn Féin.