Offering alternatives

Awful art has to be fought within a pro-choice context | Marvin Olasky

The perpetrators change-in 1990 it was Mapplethorpe in Cincinnati, now it's Ofili in Brooklyn-but throughout this decade, when religious protesters have attacked profane movies, plays, or art exhibitions, they have walked right into a media trap.

The typical ploy is to put forth a "work of art" calculated particularly to outrage traditional Catholics (and sometimes evangelicals), who will respond on cue by demanding that the outrage be removed. At the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Oct. 2 opening of an exhibition featuring a dung-and-pornography-bedecked painting of "The Holy Virgin Mary" provoked a demonstration by 200 Catholic League supporters who passed out complimentary vomit bags.

Several different story lines could have come out of this faceoff. As Ed Veith notes on page 34, Rudy Giuliani asked correctly why taxpayers should pay big bucks to subsidize the profane tastes of a few. When the New York mayor announced that his administration would take the museum off the dole, leading newspapers dutifully quoted him. But by the day after the opening, a different spin had emerged.