Prejudice in Brooklyn art

Right Reason
    By Matthew G. Alexander

Sensation, an exhibit currently showing at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, has certainly lived up to its name. One piece of the show, entitled "The Holy Virgin Mary," depicts the Madonna splattered with elephant feces and surrounded by pornographic pictures. The interesting result of the controversy surrounding the exhibit is that several political leaders have begun saying what many Catholic leaders have known for years: anti-Catholicism is the only acceptable prejudice in America.

First, some clarification is in order. Anti-Catholicism is the only acceptable prejudice, but it is not the only prejudice. Other forms of immoral bias do exist in American society, but one cannot express them publicly without incurring the rightful outrage of society at large. If, however, one wishes to bash the Catholic religion and the people who adhere to it, one may do so without fear of condemnation.

For example, Catholics protesting last year's Off-Broadway play Corpus Christi—which defames Catholic priests and depicts Jesus Christ as an active homosexual who sleeps with his disciples—were accused of trying to stifle free speech and, perversely, of being bigots themselves. William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, pointed out the hypocrisy in this behavior. He observed that had the play been about Martin Luther King, Jr. or Moses, it would have been met with universal opposition—if a New York theater would even show it in the first place.

So why it is permissible to bash Catholics and Catholicism openly, when even obliquely unflattering references to other groups earn one the tag of racist, anti-Semite, or homophobe? In earlier days, American anti-Catholicism was based on snobbery, xenophobia, and suspicions that Catholics were loyal to the Pope rather than their country. But while these sentiments drove old biases of American anti-Catholicism, they are not the principle factors driving the contemporary strain.

At the source of this phenomenon is a fundamental philosophical confrontation between Catholic values and the values of liberal America. In a relativistic society, the Catholic Church dares to teach that there are universal and unchanging standards of right and wrong, of truth and error, and of morality and immorality. In short, the Church says that something may still be wrong even if it "feels right to me." While nobody questioned these basic premises for most of the history of Western civilization, modernity has rejected them. Thus, when the Church states that contraception and homosexual acts are wrong and that women cannot be priests, society lashes out at it for being "backward," "oppressive," or "behind the times." It is not surprising that society allows attacks on Catholicism; the Church questions and threatens that society's philosophical underpinning.

Finding a remedy for this situation is tricky. As long as the philosophical incompatibility lasts, there will be anti-Catholicism. The answer, however, is not to level the playing field by welcoming all expressions of bigotry under the auspices of free speech. Neither should we send in the National Guard to close down a theater showing Corpus Christi. The first step is to recognize that it is in the interests of society to eliminate such open displays of hatred.

As for the question of inhibiting free speech, it must first be affirmed that free speech is indeed vital to the operation of a free society. If bigots wish to express their bigotry, they should be free to do so, but there is no compelling reason for the public to subsidize their endeavors with tax dollars. Hopefully, in the future the public will not tolerate or patronize displays of bigotry such as Sensation and Corpus Christi, causing them to close and preventing the creation of other works like them.

Perhaps the political criticism of the Brooklyn Museum represents a dawning recognition of the need to eliminate the hypocrisy of a society that is sensitive to any perceived hostility toward most groups, yet fosters it against a single one.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
NOTE: SITE WILL APPEAR IN A NEW BROWSER WINDOW

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