“Smithsonian Christmas-Season Exhibit Features Ant-Covered Jesus, Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts”?!?!? Yes, please.
First, let me apologize for linking you immediately to a Christian Right news organization without warning you. To expose you to something outside of your comfort zone without warning is wrong and rude.
Second, if you haven’t already heard or gotten involved… the National Portrait Gallery has just taken down a video work by queer artist David Wojnarowicz (R.I.P.) called Fire in My Belly. Now for those who feel this mirrors the Mapplethorpe controversies of yesteryear (also in D.C. – what’s up, Memorial City?!?!) then good! Now go and act on it. Send an email addressed to director Martin Sullivan to SullivanM@si.edu – the press statement would have you send your queer thoughts to npgnews@si.edu but we at the GP are your hookup! Let him know that the removal of this queer artist’s work (in in a show about queer contributions to art/culture!) constitutes an erasure of queer lives lived and grievously promises to replicate past homophobic events in our recent past.
Is it any wonder that this is suddenly an issue on the eve of the demise of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? I smell raw, seeping sewage from the mouths of homophobic haterz dressed up as churchfolk. If that’s you, you demean all goodly lambs of god who live in light and love instead of bigotry.
This article appears in November 26 • 2010.