Whether or not you like his films, it's hard to argue that Kevin Smith doesn't have a sense of humor. Or an open mind.

Both personality traits were amply in evidence over the weekend when, according to a special report posted at View Askew (www.viewaskew.com), Smith's online avatar — and subsequently covered in the U.K.'s Empire Online — the director of Clerks and Chasing Amy participated with a group protesting the release of his latest film, Dogma.

The protestors reportedly had gathered outside a theater in Eatontown, N.J., Smith's hometown. The bearded, bespectacled director blended right in, sporting signs reading, "To Hell With Dogma" and "Dogma Is Dog-s--t."

Smith went unrecognized and kept his identity to himself, spending an hour praying with the group and chatting with fellow protestors. Not all of them proved as open to both sides of the debate as the incognito director himself. "I was told some nasty things about my parents," Smith reports, "and some nastier things about myself."

Not that he minded. "[The protestors] seemed nice enough," the director says, but adds that he'd "be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that they didn't have any donuts or coffee out there."

Before the evening was over, a local news crew showed up to cover the protest, giving Smith the chance to air his faux-Dogma beefs in a short interview segment. Without revealing who he was, the director told reporters he was angry about Dogma and wouldn't be paying to see it. Of course, being Smith, he couldn't help adding that he'd "liked the director's first film a little."

The protest attended by Smith, and other such gatherings, don't appear to have had much affect on Dogma's ticket sales. The satiric flick, which stars Smith pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as fallen angels attempting to return to heaven, grossed a healthy $8.7 million over its first weekend in theaters.