The Real Indecency

May 2001

The state of Utah now has a “Porn Czar” whose job it is to make sure that state’s citizens are not exposed to “obscene” materials. A 41-year-old reputed virgin has been selected to scrutinize, judge, and censor books, magazines, videos, movies, art, and Internet content. Materials that violate “community standards” regarding sexual attitudes and behavior (as well as how other bodily functions are portrayed) are to be banned. Of course, in Utah any “community standard” is a Mormon standard. Thus, the new porn czar’s job is to enforce Mormon orthodoxy on all the state’s citizens.

In New York City, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has charged the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission with rooting out “indecency” in all city-funded cultural facilities. Mayor Giuliani’s first targets? A painting of an African Madonna that incorporates elephant dung in part of a canvas of swirling colors, and “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” a photographic representation of the Last Supper scene wherein a black woman, nude except for a shawl, appears as Jesus. Giuliani wants to make sure the city does not support such “anti-Catholic” and “disgusting” art. The Mayor’s arts commission, thus, is directed to review all art in city museums, all performances on city stages, and all writing commissioned by city agencies for its potential offense to the Catholic church.

Religious-based censorship efforts are, of course, nothing new. Religious institutions derive much of their power by claiming unique, divine insight as to what is and isn’t godly regarding basic bodily functions such as nutrition, elimination, and– especially– sexuality. By branding any non-church sanctioned sexuality as obscene, institutional religions seek to control people by threatening sexual “heretics” with god’s judgment. All major religious institutions have constructed narrow boundaries of acceptable sexual expression in efforts to enhance their power and control– at the expense of human happiness and fulfillment.

Earlier this century, Jews were the target of religious-based censorship drives. The Catholic Legion of Decency sought to reign in Hollywood “decadence” by threatening Jewish movie studio executives with anti-Semitic retribution unless the portrayal of pro-Catholic values on-screen was enforced. Nazis sought to purge European museums of “degenerate” (read, Jewish) influences. In both campaigns, the specter of perverted sexuality was employed to cow artists and curators into submission.

Today, the same intimidation tactics are being used by Utah officials, Mayor Giuliani, and other would-be censors. Though blatant anti-Semitism is not in current political fashion, standing up to deviant sexuality retains its political potency both in “backwoods” Utah and “sophisticated” New York. Feminists, gay people, and all others who would challenge prevailing religious-based sexual attitudes must struggle against not only “community standards” but also the coercive power of the state to enforce them, the Bill of Rights be damned.

The threat of official sanction has a chilling effect on pornographers and other artists: shipping a brilliantly choreographed orgy scene to Salt Lake City video stores guarantees protracted, expensive litigation; hanging a painting in a Brooklyn museum that suggests god isn’t offended by the human body and its functions risks crippling financial retribution. Few are brave enough to take on such challenges.

Let us use our insight as gay people to lead the fight against all censorship efforts, understanding that expression can either be free… or not. Let us proclaim that insisting god has narrow-minded, destructive attitudes about sex and the human body is the true blasphemy. And let us recognize that enforcing any religious institution’s arbitrary sex rules as law is the real indecency.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=9485A588-327C-11D5-A7BD00A0C9D84F02>