THE Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington hurriedly removed a video yesterday that was part of an AIDS awareness exhibit after complaints from a Catholic group that the images were sacrilegious.
Click on pic for video report
Catholic League President Bill Donohue said the video by artist David Wojnarowicz depicting ants crawling on a crucifix was “hate speech” and designed to insult Christians.
After he was alerted to the piece Monday night by a New York Post reporter, Donohue began a campaign to urge Congress to cut public funding for the Smithsonian museum complex.
This is not the first time the Smithsonian has offended us. I’m going to cast my net much wider. Why should the government pay for this? … How dare they take our money to fund attacks on (our religion).
The Smithsonian receives public funding for its staff and facilities, but its exhibits are funded privately.
It’s unusual for the Smithsonian to bow to public complaints so quickly, and curators were aware the exhibit could be controversial. Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said the museum is responsive to its public audience but will stand behind the overall exhibit. The piece in question was on a video kiosk, and visitors had to call it up to view it. It was not a dominant part of the exhibit.
Donohue said his group has objected in the past to an article in Smithsonian magazine that he said was anti-Catholic and also to the museum featuring the work of artist Andres Serrano in 1996 because he had created a piece years earlier that placed a crucifix in his urine.
National Portrait Gallery Director Martin Sullivan said in a statement about the current video that Wojnarowicz’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. He said the museum did not intend to offend anyone.
I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious.
The video was made when the artist was suffering with AIDS in Mexico in the 1980s, Sullivan said. Part of the idea is that humans are made in Christ’s image and that:
We’re all going back into the earth, that we’re decaying. If you look at Latin American art and imagery, really over time there are a lot of portrayals of Christian iconography with suffering, agony and death.
When told the Smithsonian had removed the video, Donohue said he was “relieved they made the right decision” and that the removal relieves his objections “a great deal.” He said he did not object to the exhibit as a whole but specifically to parts he considered anti-Christian.
In the past, the New York-based Catholic League has protested an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum that included a portrait of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by elephant dung. Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called for city funding to the museum to be frozen, but a judge later ruled the move violated the First Amendment.
Donohue said he didn’t believe the artwork at the Smithsonian was intended to portray an AIDS patient.
If they’re concerned about making a statement about AIDS, they could have chosen a better way to do it instead of insult us. I have more respect for art than these people do apparently.
Hat Tip: Alan
UPDATE:
We have just learned that Christian Voice’s Stephen “Birdshit” Green is demanding that Tesco pull a “sinful” Twilight advent calendar from its stores because it offends him and fellow zealots.
Green says mixing religion with the cult vampire series is “deeply offensive” to Christians.
Twilight's Robert Pattinson
It’s sickening to see the message of Jesus Christ being hijacked to peddle a brand like Twilight, which to all intents and purposes proclaims an anti-religious cult. Twilight may be fiction, but it is dangerous to mix-up such a story in the minds of impressionable children with that of the Nativity.
The Twilight Eclipse calendar features a picture of actress Kristen Stewart, and her two rivals in love – Edward the vampire, played by Robert Pattinson, and Jacob the werewolf, portrayed by Taylor Lautner.
Tesco apologised if anyone was offended but said it always gives customers a choice, adding:
Twilight is a very popular brand and we aim to provide the types of products our customers would like to buy.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:12 am
Seeing how the pope is one of major causes of the spread of AIDS in Africa, I would have thought that insulting Catholics was probably one of the better ways to make a statement about AIDS.
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:22 am
Donohue once agin proves better than anyone else ever could that he is indeed a deranged lunatic suffering from an acute affliction of paranoia.
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:34 am
What a freaking moron.
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:40 am
It seems that the RC church has been watching the antics of the muslims and are now taking the opportunity to also be permanately ‘offended’.
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:57 am
Donohue wallows in his hideous, loathsome blood “sacrific” nonsense but it isn’t the body of a man covered with wounds that bothers him – it’s a few ants. Go figger.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – screw Bill Donohue
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:05 pm
“How dare they take our money to fund attacks on (our religion).”
Mr. Donohue seems to “selectively” forget that his and all other religious organiztaions are tax excempt and by default the American tax payer picks up the tab on their behalf…..The US could use a few of those tax exempt dollars just now.
When you do not pay your way in the world of taxes …you give up the right to complain about the way in which tax dollars are used.
Let the Catholic church provide the American tax payer with just a fraction of the billions it collects every year from the fools that contribute to its coffers……then you can complain….until then Billy ……….Shut the fuck up.
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Good art should offend, at least some of the time. It should seize you and make you think ‘I never saw it that way before’. If art is to be censored so as not to offend the views of bigots like Donohue then all is lost. Shame on the Smithsonian!
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:30 pm
@phil marston
Well said.
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Those poor ants, having to crawl over a blood covered man being tortured – why aren’t the “insect rights” brigade protesting about this
Seriously, Donahue converts more people to atheism every time he opens his mouth.
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm
No-one has a right NOT to be offended. Just how many fucking times does that have to be said?
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:57 pm
How, except in degree, is this any better than the persecution of a cartoonist drawing Mohammed, or of Salman Rushdie?
December 2nd, 2010 at 2:44 pm
@ Graham Martin-Royle: I am offended by your language, and I demand that you censor your words immediately. I didn’t come to a freethinker website to see anti-Christian messages like swearing!
Bird Shit Green complaining about a Twilight Advent Calendar smacks of desperation for attention and relevance. I am certain they have been around for a couple of years already, and there are plenty of other advent calendars he could complain about if he put his mind to it. There have been WWE advent calendars for years and years, but one would think that violence and blood are totally not in keeping with the Christmas message – that’s for Easter!
Of course, the Winnie the Pooh advent calendars are perfectly appropriate, because Christianity is full of shit.
December 2nd, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Hang on a bit. Green doesn’t want one story to be mixed up with another. Why not, they’re both fantasy.
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:06 pm
True, AngieRS, but of the two Twilight is by far the sexier. I think Birdshit may have experienced a stirring in the loins at the sight of Robert Pattinson, and feels the need to have him removed from other lustful eyes.
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Can Green really not see the irony of it when he says, “Twilight may be fiction, but it is dangerous to mix-up such a story in the minds of impressionable children with that of the Nativity”?
Christianity has been happily messing with the minds of impressionable children for the past couple of millennia.
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:11 pm
@ Marcus: “Christianity has been happily messing with the minds of impressionable children for the past couple of millennia.”
Not just their minds…
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:19 pm
On the plus side, green sounds like a fucking idiot cry baby, he does more harm to his religion than a lot of us would manage if we were trying.
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:29 pm
@rog and others
I wish I could be as reassured that nutters spouting vile rubbish harms their cause.
I think it can encourage the latent nutter within many. They hear the intensity and apparent simplicity of the rubbish and conclude ‘they may have a point’ Or ‘I secretly thought that and now this sensible man is saying it’
And the real danger is that people crying ‘offended’ leads other people to discuss whether the art or book or whatever is actually offensive, rather than thinking about whether or not we have a right not to be offended. We don’t.
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:31 pm
JMW:
Thank you. I was hoping someone might spot my schoolboy error in missing that bit out!
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Or more accurately we have a right to be as offended as we wish. we do not have any right to control other people with our hurt feelings.
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:33 pm
At least Green is getting with the times and having a go at twilight unlike all the other bible bashers who are STILL moaning about harry potter (both are utter pish IMO
) but I can’t help wonder if Green just walked into a tesco went over the advent calenders and chose twilight randomly out of all the other ones that were there (doctor who dennis the menace etc) and singled that out.
As for Bill Donnahue, it’s impossable to take that vile excuse of a man even remotely seriously I don’t know what exactly constitutes a league but it’s definetly a lot more than one guy and a computer.
December 2nd, 2010 at 6:46 pm
I knew what an Advent Calendar was long before I knew what Advent was. Of course when I was a kid the things were only used to eagerly count down the long wait until Christmas Day, the doors didn’t have a chocolate treat inside, just a little picture of something Christmassy. I would say that Green is an industrial strength loon but I don’t think that he has much influence one way or another. I don’t think that I would even know he existed if I didn’t read this blog so it is probable that most other people don’t either.
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:37 pm
S(BS)G says “mixing religion with the cult vampire series is “deeply offensive†to Christians.”?
WTF – the christians are the deeply creepy people who think they drink the blood of jeshue bar yussif every week in their churches. Should fit right in with vampires!
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Stephen Green should not be seen
Without a brain cell in between.
(Traditional saying)
December 3rd, 2010 at 8:45 am
“to mix-up such a story in the minds of impressionable children with that of the Nativity.”
Poll in a large European city last Sunday – “What does Christmas celbrate” and “what does Nativity mean”:
Answers ranging from something out of the bible I think to Jesus getting crucified and the classic no idea, I just like the presents.
Seems there is little Nativity story to mix in there.
December 4th, 2010 at 12:28 am
mixing religion with the cult vampire series is “deeply offensiveâ€
Yeah, to vampires.
December 6th, 2010 at 10:05 am
“It’s sickening to see the message of Twilight being hijacked to peddle a brand like Christianity, which to all intents and purposes proclaims to be a religious cult. The bible may be fiction, but it is dangerous to mix-up such a story in the minds of impressionable children with reality.”
NB. I’ve never read a word of the Twilight books, nor seen any of the films. But Stephanie Myers is a Muse fan, so she’s alright by me.