Monday, November 29, 2010

My Big Fat Homoerotic Christmas

A TSA pre-screen? SBE? I'm sure it's Kosher, whatever it is.

How many millions of Chinese Yuan did we borrow to pay for this?
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.
If you've been wondering why some billionaires are itching for higher taxes, this is the problem: We've got bills to pay...
The Smithsonian Institution has an annual budget of $761 million, 65 percent of which comes from the federal government, according to Linda St. Thomas, the Smithsonian's chief spokesperson. The National Portrait Gallery itself received $5.8 million in federal funding in fiscal year 2010, according to St. Thomas. It also received $5.8 million in federal funding in fiscal 2009, according to the museum’s annual report. The gallery’s overall funding in that year was $8 million.
If you're like me and you don't like having your income confiscated to pay for sex art, it's only because you're an intolerant, immature rube:
CNSNews.com asked Ward if he thought the exhibit might be offensive to people who disagree with the homosexual lifestyle. He said, “I believe that the American public is mature and tolerant in its opinion of alternative points of view. This is an art and cultural exhibition that displays important and key works of artistic creation and attempts to interpret them against the background of American history.”
One needn't frame this as a debate over religion or sexual proclivities. We simply don't have the money. Should the federal government be spending ¥3,300,000,000 ($500,000,000) each year on the Smithsonian Institution, passing the bill to future generations of Americans?

As millions of Americans struggle to find employment and the Federal Government contemplates increasing taxes in the midst of a recession, cutting funding to organizations such as NPR and the Smithsonian should be easy decisions. And if conservatives in Congress don't have the courage to confront these relatively small challenges, there's not much hope for tackling the entitlement crisis that threatens to bankrupt this country.

Happy holidays!

Update: Islamic sensibilities were NOT harmed in the making of this exhibit.

Discussion: Memeorandum

5 comments:

The Conservative Lady said...

Your take on this is right on. We're broke and yet we spend inordinate amounts of money on a museum that exhibits this kind of trash.
Islamic sensibilities were NOT harmed in the making of this exhibit.
I love that line.

Unknown said...

Maybe they should call this exhibit "American art gone wild"
This is something I think 'The Young Guns' can take to the House floor to defund.

Anonymous said...

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Larry Sheldon said...

If you don't post something new to get that creep off the front page, I'm going to have to drop you from the must read list.

DaBlade said...

Well, at least you got some new post labels out of the deal. Looking forward to the second posts piggy-backing these two: "ant-covered Jesus" and "homoerotic".