Last year, there was a manufactured wingnut freak-out over a piece of art at the Smithsonian called Fire In My Belly by David Wojnarowicz. It was obviously manufactured because, as we all know, wingnuts don’t really do culture. No one had actually complained about the exhibit before some rube reporter decided to lose her marbles over it, which prompted actual congressmen [Boehner and Cantor] to do one of their little “stick it to the liberals” dances that go over so well with their hick base, threatening to cut funding from the Smithsonian. Anyway, they all said the exhibit was “anti-Christian,” which it actually wasn’t, but one would have to watch the piece to actually understand that, and again, wingnuts don’t do culture. So the Smithsonian caved, because liberals, sadly and pathetically, do that sometimes.
Having been pulled from an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution, a film which features ants crawling on a crucifix and a man stitching his mouth together will go on display as part of a larger homosexual exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.
The nation’s second largest art museum, CNSNews.com reported last week, will feature A Fire In My Belly, a film by David Wojnarowicz, a homosexual producer who unsurprisingly died of AIDS, within an exhibit titled “Hide and Seek.”
[...]
Part of the larger “Hide and Seek” exhibit, which landed just before Christmas last year at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, A Fire in My Belly, critics note, is an amateurish attempt to say something, but about the only message it imparts is that its homosexual creator was a disturbed and tortured soul for whom a viewer should feel pity.
As CNS described the film, “[t]he four-minute version of the video shown in the exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery shows, among other images, ants crawling over the image of Jesus on a crucifix, two halves of a loaf of bread being sewn together, the bloody mouth of a man being sewn shut, a hand dropping coins, a man undressing, a man’s genitals, a bowl of blood, and mummified humans.”
Uh, I’ve seen the piece. One has to be incredibly stupid, if they actually know the context in which the piece was created, not to understand it. It’s art, and again, I know that culture is HARD FOR WINGNUTS, but it’s not difficult to interpret.
Isn’t this wingnut writer oh-so-pissy, though?
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League says he’s not protesting this time around, though:
Bill Donohue, of the Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights, says his organization will not campaign against the museum’s showing the offensive film. “We can’t be like in a dog and pony show every time they show the stupid video,” he told the New York Daily News.
But Donohue did attack museum director Arnold Lehman, who had defended the anti-Christian film by telling the Daily News, “For a city that prides itself on diversity and creativity, there couldn’t be a better exhibition.” Replied Donohue, “For Arnold Lehman, there is no such thing as anti-Catholic art. Catholics who disagree are apparently too stupid to appreciate the complexities of these masterpieces.”
Haha, NOT a dog and pony show? I thought that was basically the point of the Catholic League’s existence.
Anyway, so to sum up, I just had to report the exact same story I was reporting last year about this time, because wingnuts.
This is what happens when you hand the keys to overgrown malcontent children who never intended to actually govern in the first place:
The House of Representatives will likely issue its own defense of a federal law abandoned by the White House that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, House Speaker John Boehner said on Monday.
President Barack Obama decided his administration would no longer defend the 15-year-old Defense of Marriage Act in U.S. court, dropping its challenge to a federal judge’s ruling in Boston that the statute was unconstitutional.
The decision last week angered Republicans in Congress who oppose same-sex marriage and opened Obama to charges that he was using the case to cater to gay rights activists and their supporters, who praised the reversal.
“I’d be very surprised if the House didn’t decide that they were going to defend the law,” Boehner said in an interview posted on the website of the Christian Broadcasting Network, a U.S. cable TV channel.
Until the next thing makes him cry salty, orange tears…
Oh lordy, let’s watch a wingnut freak-out over nothing.
Conservatives don’t tend to like art. They feel intimidated by it. They don’t understand it. They get their fee fees hurt when art does what art is supposed to do by provoking thought and feeling, by pushing boundaries in order to provide commentary, etc. Liberals don’t get freaked out in the same way — we understand that, hello, it is art, and if it is Not Your Thing, you are not being forced to look at it or buy it.
So, the freak-out comes to us viaRoy Edroso, who brings it to his readers by undertaking the entertaining, if tedious, task of reading Kathryn Jean Lopez’s words at the National Review. K-Lo is freaked out about this piece from “Penny Starr” [drag name, most likely], a “reporter” for CNS “News.” You see, there is an exhibit that has been running for a while at the Smithsonian, and will be running through the holiday season and after, and you see, it has naughty GAY stuff in it, and all of this is, of course, part of the War on Christmas, and is, of course, Too Soon, never forget, etc.:
The federally funded National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, is currently showing an exhibition that features images of an ant-covered Jesus, male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show’s catalog as “homoerotic.”
The exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” opened on Oct. 30 and will run throughout the Christmas Season, closing on Feb. 13.
Right on through Jesus’ birthday party!
Penny then goes on to detail what has become the exhibit that’s causing the most [stupid] problems [among people who don't understand or respect art]:
“A Fire in My Belly” was created by David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992). The full-length version of this 1987 video, according to the description at the exhibit, is 30 minutes long. The version viewable in the National Portrait Gallery has been edited down to 4 minutes. The description says, “A Fire in My Belly, a compilation of footage largely shot in Mexico, weaves together numerous images of loss, pain, and death into a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic; it concludes in a picture of the world aflame.”
The description speaks of the video artist’s “poetic, yet furious, condemnation of the way greed, religion, and selfishness conspire to label certain people as outside the scope of our caring.” It also quotes Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS, as saying, “When I was told I’d contracted the virus, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d contracted a diseased society as well.”
The four-minute version of the video shown in the exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery shows, among other images, ants crawling over the image of Jesus on a crucifix, two halves of a loaf of bread being sewn together, the bloody mouth of a man being sewn shut, a hand dropping coins, a man undressing, a man’s genitals, a bowl of blood, and mummified humans.
A differently edited four-minute version of Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” video posted on YouTube shows images of ants crawling over the image of Jesus (as does the version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery), but also shows a man masturbating (an image which is not included in the edited version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, which only shows a man’s genitals.). The YouTube version also carries a soundtrack that is different from the version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.
Cue the sanctimonious rubes of the new Republican House majority, because it’s CULTURE WAR OUTRAGE TIME!
The Catholic site CNSNews.com brought the exhibit — called “Hide/Seek,” which “contains video of a Jesus statue with ants crawling on it, as well as works of art with strongly sexual themes” — to Boehner and Cantor’s attention, asking what they thought of it. They could have responded, “We have other shit to do before worrying about the aesthetic merit of some art exhibit in Chinatown,” but that would’ve been too easy. Instead we get:
“American families have a right to expect better from recipients of taxpayer funds in a tough economy,” Boehner’s Spokesman Kevin Smith told CNSNews.com. “While the amount of money involved may be small, it’s symbolic of the arrogance Washington routinely applies to thousands of spending decisions involving Americans’ hard-earned money at a time when one in every 10 Americans is out of work and our children’s future is being threatened by debt.
“Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves to end the job-killing spending spree in Washington,” Smith said.
MURRIKAN FAMILIES SHOULD NEVER BE CONFRONTED WITH ART OR EDUCATION, or moreover, with worldviews that are different from the average heartland teabagger, he is basically saying.
The National Portrait Gallery has removed a work of art from a GLBT-themed exhibition after it attracted conservative and religious ire for its images of homosexuality and Christianity. Director Martin Sullivan announced the removal of A Fire in My Belly by artist David Wojnarowicz after conservative news service CNS wrote yesterday that the “Christmas-season exhibit,” which opened in October, used taxpayer money to indirectly fund an exhibition that includes imagery of genitalia, homoerotic situations, and Christ covered in ants.
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Publicist Bethany Bentley says that until the article was published, the museum had not heard a single objection to the exhibition. “On Friday we had over 10,000 visitors to the gallery, and we had no complaints,” she says.
Well, of course there were no complaints. Before the manufactured outrage from people whose idea of “appreciating art” is picking up Thomas Kinkade prints on clearance, the people who were aware of the exhibition were People Who Go To Museums. There is very little overlap between the two groups.
Of course, this didn’t stop the wingnutterie from engaging in a little Muslim-bashing, because you see, Christians are an oppressed minority in Murrika, etc.:
If these “artists” really wanted to be daring and controversial, they’d create an ant-covered Quran exhibit. But the cowards take the path of least resistance and then applaud their own courage in the face of minuscule risk.
[...]
AIDS? Please, stop these BS excuses, it was meant to offend.
Yes, moron, it’s a piece about AIDS. And if it offended, if it was shocking, perhaps there is an artistic point being made that can’t be explained in the two verses, chorus, bridge and key change of a Toby Keith song. Perhaps.
So anyway, the Culture Wars are back, I guess. The next two years are going to be such a waste of our time.
For the sake of art, the indeed disturbing Wojnarowicz piece, in its modified YouTube version, is after the jump. No, it is not safe for work, which is why it wasn’t exhibited at Your Work, but rather in a museum of art. You may watch it or not watch it. It’s harrowing, especially with the Diamanda Galas soundtrack added. I will say, though, that the outrage over this piece, the pearl-clutching and whatnot, is simply proof that this piece of art is extremely effective, whether or not you are moved by it.
Speaking of gays [imagine that], gays can kiss longer than straight people, so nyah. Good thing, because two polls now show that marriage equality has majority support, so there’s a lot of kissyface in our future. The Religious Right are victims now, in Canada and Indianapolis, where they were asked to make gay cupcakes. I discussed the need for minorities to stand up for each other, specifically as regards moderate and liberal Muslims vis a vis the gay community. Oh, and I went off on Chris Barron of GOProud, which led to a Twitter Fight, which led to a nice discussion about BBQ. He’s a fun sparring partner, I’ll give him that.
Then a crazy guy in Saxby Chambliss’s office decided to leave threatening anti-gay comments on JoeMyGod, so that was embarrassing for big old homophobe Saxby. Speaking of homophobes, HomoCon is tomorrow! YAY! Okay, that’s all.
Music this week is from that old gay classic musical RENT. I happened to be listening to the Original Cast recording last night, and I really don’t have to set it up for you, because you’re all gay and stuff, so you can probably sing the entire show all the way through in your sleep, and some of you probably know the blocking. Anyway, one of my very favorite moments in all of musical theater is after the first “La Vie Boheme“, when Mimi and Roger sing “I Should Tell You” to each other. [Insert flutter, sigh and single tear here.] So we’ll start with that, hit shuffle on the old iTunes machine and, oh look, it’s like, my favorite Tori Amos song ever, and also some other stuff. More videos after le jump.
1. Jay Brannan – “Bowlegged and Starving”
2. Tokyo Police Club – “Tessellate” [Remix by Tom Campesinos!]
3. Banjo or Freakout – “Joy to the World”
4. 10,000 Maniacs – “Gold Rush Brides”
5. Tori Amos – “Lust”
6. Fever Ray – “If I Had A Heart”
7. Lightning Dust – “Never Seen”
8. U2 – “Numb”
9. David Mead – “Girl on the Roof”
10. Port O’Brien – “In the Meantime”
Apparently rumors have been going around, so one of the few journalists we have left, Mike Stark, decided to ask Boehner about it directly:
It was Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) who told abstinence education advocate Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) that he had to resign from Congress after having an affair with a staffer. It was also Boehner that told members of his caucus that they had to stop using the “party house” to entertain young Republican female lobbyists.
[...]
I began hearing this from several sources last month with increasing amounts of detail, including the name of the lobbyists Boehner is supposedly having a relationship with – Lisbeth Lyons, Vice President for Government Affairs for the American Printers Association.
I decided I’d look into the story, but I hadn’t decided how to pose the question directly to Boehner. Last night, I learned the location of the House Republican Leadership’s “Pledge to America,” event.
I was able to catch up with Boehner just as he was leaving the event. His silence (which does not equal an admission, of course) in the face of the repeated question does not, it seem to me, to be one you’d expect from a happily married man confronted with an accusation of being unfaithful. Note the complete lack of outrage at being asked about allegations that are unfounded or untrue. There wasn’t even a simple “no,” to put the issue to rest.
Boehner’s reaction was indeed strange.
Since Boehner didn’t answer the question, and instead reacted so strangely — as Mike points out, as a married man, the answer to an accusation like that, if unfounded, would be pretty simple: “No.” — Mike Stark decided to ask the woman in question, Lisbeth Lyons. Here’s her equally strange reaction:
“No comment” on whether or not she’s sleeping with John Boehner?
I agree with Mike Stark: This is weird.
For the record, count me as a liberal who personally does not care what politicians are doing with their spare time — except when they use their positions of power to moralize against and vote against gay people. If they’re doing that to appease the heartland wingnuts, and then they’re cheating on their wives in their spare time, it becomes interesting. So let’s review a bit of the Boehner’s record:
Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Nov 2007)
Voted YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Rated 7% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)
Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance. (Dec 2006)
I have a feeling this story is going to get bigger, and I’m so glad that there are a few left, like Mike Stark, who will actually commit acts of journalism inside the Beltway.
There wouldn’t really have been a story here if either of them had denied it. At least then, they would be on record when confronted with the accusations. But that is not the case right now, is it?
In 1995, House Majority leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) referred to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) as “Barney Fag.” He quickly apologized calling his verbiage a “slip of the tongue”. Fifteen years later, the obstreperous Tea Party movement that Armey is behind showed no such restraint, with members boldly calling Frank a “faggot” during the healthcare debate, while the crowd stood by and laughed. They also used the N-word to taunt civil rights hero, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), as he entered the Capitol to vote.
Can the media please stop pretending that the Tea Party is an amalgam of small government conservatives and anxious Americans concerned about their families? What we just witnessed was not spontaneous, nor was it a genuine outpouring of anger towards Washington. It was privileged DC Republicans shilling for the insurance industry while posing as populists. To obscure their genuine goals, they mobilized racists and riff raff to throw tyrannical tantrums in an effort to intimidate lawmakers.
If you think I’m wrong, watch almost any interview with Tea Baggers on the healthcare bill. They display a shocking lack of understanding about what they were actually protesting. Many condemn “socialized” medicine while not realizing that Medicare is a government program. These “good folks” have consistently regurgitated stale and misleading GOP talking points about “death panels” that they heard on FOX News.
Sure, there are some Tea Baggers who don’t fit this unflattering description. But one would have to be intellectually dishonest to deny the role extremists are playing in this movement. It is also worth noting that those who are reportedly not fringe ideologues are nonetheless eerily comfortable protesting alongside the more fanatical goons.
The thuggish tactics — from the ugly August “town brawls” to the race-baiting rallies on Capitol Hill – were grotesque and anti-democratic. Many of these so-called “patriots” were not putting forth real arguments in the interest of America — but simply arguing loudly to bully opponents and drown out genuine debate.
It was disgusting to watch Republican members of Congress egg on this unruly behavior. Several grandstanding politicians encouraged the mob from a second story balcony on the Capitol, as the empowered crowd yelled slogans through bullhorns such as, “Nancy Pelosi, you will burn in hell for this.” These grossly irresponsible lawmakers even encouraged anarchy by cheering a protester who was ejected from the House chamber for a disruptive outburst.
In my view, Republicans have crossed a dangerous line that threatens the fabric and cohesion of this nation. They are courting and catering to crazies and now call them a core constituency. The GOP leadership is consistently communicating in illogical, apocalyptic terms to reach “Values Voters” who are excitedly awaiting Armageddon.
The very strategy of today’ conservative movement is an affront to this nation. They incite their most fervent and fanatic followers by questioning the legitimacy of America’ leaders and institutions. They engage in legislative obstruction. And, many of these zealots believe that God commands them to rule, while anyone else is a usurper of the natural political order.
Republicans are also fanning the flames of regionalism and trying to balkanize this nation for political gain. When asked if passing the bill would help democrats politically, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) replied, “Someone at Harvard or in San Francisco may think that, but not the rest of the country.” This rhetoric mirror’ that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) who spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month and derided liberals for supposedly hanging out at “Chablis-drinking, Brie-eating parties in San Francisco.”
At the anti-healthcare rally, cantankerous protesters yelled, “kill the bill.” But, there is a true concern that the overheated rhetoric will lead to the death of real people. Republicans and Tea Baggers can only shout “fire” in a crowded theatre for so long before an unbalanced individual moves decisively to extinguish the alleged conflagration.
The GOP and the Tea Bag crowd need to stop polarizing America and dial back the rhetoric before it is too late.
As far as the politics of healthcare, the GOP will suffer. Obama proved he can be tough and get things done in Washington – and everybody loves a winner. In the end, the public will appreciate their new benefits and the GOP is now in the position of trying to deny health insurance to people with preexisting conditions. Good luck on that.
Finally, the gloom and doom scenarios painted by overwrought phonies, such as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), will not come to pass. This is no different than when social conservatives claimed that civil unions in Vermont and marriage equality in Massachusetts would destroy the world.
Obviously, this did not happen, the public saw legalizing LGBT relationships was no big deal and our opponents lost credibility. The same will happen with healthcare. The sooner the public sees the sky is not falling, the faster the polling numbers will plummet for Republicans who voted on wrong side of history.
Last week, TWO’s Evan Hurst reported that House Minority Leader John Boehner joined right wing Catholics to attack the Human Right’s Campaign’s Harry Knox as an “anti-Catholic bigot” and called on him to resign from President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Why?
They were allegedly upset that Knox correctly stated that the Pope is hurting people in the name of Jesus by actively working against honest sex and contraception education in sub-Saharan Africa, and is thus contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS on that continent.
The attacks on Knox over old comments seemed oddly timed and forced – as if those leveling the bogus charges were desperately groping to find a political issue to serve as a smoke screen to distract the world. It was unclear at the time why these pious henchmen wanted us to avert our gaze.
Well, today the other Prada shoe fell.
It became sickeningly obvious why the Church needed to quickly find a Boogie Man. A new child abuse scandal rocked the Roman Catholic Church in Pope Benedict’s XVI native Germany. According to The New York Times:
The widening public scandal began last month with allegations that three priests at the elite Canisius Jesuit high school in Berlin had sexually abused students in the 1970s and ’80s. In the midst of a steadily growing uproar over the handling of that case, the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article that said nearly 100 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abusing children and teenagers nationwide since 1995.
Der Spiegel said that at least 94 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abuse since 1995, based on a poll of 27 of Germany’s 30 Catholic dioceses. The magazine’s cover this week was illustrated with an image of a priest reaching suggestively under his robes.
Making matters worse for Rome, Irish victims of the church’s rampant sexual abuse wrote a letter to the Pope asking him to take responsibility for the church’s concealment of child molestation by forcing out bishops implicated in the decades of cover-up.
Exactly, why hasn’t The Pope done this already? Why isn’t punishing child rapists a top priority, rather than the Vatican’s outrageous campaign against marriage equality, where consenting adults commit their lives to each other?
The way I see it, conservative Catholics, such as Boehner, Thomas Peters of the American Papist Blog, Dr. Kevin Roberts of Catholic Families for America, and Larry Cirignano of Faithful Catholic Citizens tried to pick a fight with America’s largest LGBT rights groups last week over condoms only days before the German report and Irish letter were publicly released. They knew this week’s shameful news would turn stomachs and they needed to find a scapegoat.
Fortunately, their conjured anti-gay dust-up fooled no one and the world’s eyes are firmly fixed on the real issue — the church’s continued exploitation of youth and the heartbreaking cover-ups.
Before the Roman Catholic Church preaches about values and points fingers, I believe it must clean up its own house. At the moment, it has no moral authority to talk about sexual matters – from condoms to birth control to homosexuality.
The Vatican has a priority problem. I suggest it take a break and spend the next year devoting all of its energy, time and financial resources to healing the hurt it has caused to its own members. Indeed, Germany has lost 3 million Catholics since 1990. Today’s tawdry revelations won’t help reverse this trend. Nor will launching fake attacks on LGBT people and leaders as a diversion from perversion that has brought the church to its knees.
Last year, there was a manufactured wingnut freak-out over a piece of art at the Smithsonian called Fire In My Belly by David Wojnarowicz. It was obviously manufactured because, as we all know, wingnuts don’t really do culture. No one had actually complained about the exhibit before some rube reporter decided to lose her marbles over it, which prompted actual congressmen [Boehner and Cantor] to do one of their little “stick it to the liberals” dances that go over so well with their hick base, threatening to cut funding from the Smithsonian. Anyway, they all said the exhibit was “anti-Christian,” which it actually wasn’t, but one would have to watch the piece to actually understand that, and again, wingnuts don’t do culture. So the Smithsonian caved, because liberals, sadly and pathetically, do that sometimes.
Weekly Column
Last week, TWO’s 
