Guest Post: Gandhi was right about Christians

I attended my first meeting for Freethinkers of Northern Colorado today at the Dazbog coffee shop on North Mason Street in Fort Collins, CO.  They meet there the third Sunday of each month at 10 AM. An invigorating conversation was had by all. During the discourse the Loveland Art Hoopla was discussed at length. I speak of the unfortunate incident in which a Mz. Kathleen Folden from  Kalispell, Montana waltzed into the Loveland Museum Gallery, took out a crowbar and smashed open a display containing a print composed by Stanford University professor Enrique Chagoya. The print, titled "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" depicts the head of jesus on the body of a clothed prostitute who has a young man pressing his head on her thigh with his tongue out. You can see the print here. 

To me, the most entertaining aspect of the media coverage of this fiasco has been the apparent inability of certain news correspondents to look at and consider art for themselves, let alone place it in any societal context. I find it incredibly funny and sad that all the people complaining about this art (FOX news correspondents especially) have apparently not looked at the entire piece with their own eyes but are merely going off of hearsay. In their report that aired before the art was attacked they bemoaned the piece saying - "I wonder what would have happened to the art were it Mohammed depicted in a sex act?"

Funny they should say this. If you look at the bottom row of panels you see Mohammed knelt and praying at the foot of a bed where two pigs in bikinis are dancing. I'm quite sure this means Chagoya is an equal opportunity blasphemer and probably will be called an artistic genius for this!   

A fellow first-time attendee to the meeting spoke up and said he had written an op-ed piece that had yet to be printed in the local paper. I offered to put it up here at Tom Paine's Ghost. So here you go.  A guest post from a fellow free-thinker of Northern Colorado.

Gandhi was right about Christians

By  Joe Martin

Mahatma Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Kathleen Folden is a perfect example of what he meant.

While I don't expect the average bumpkin to understand abstractions such as artistically expressed messages about society or its institutions, neither do I expect them to start swinging a crowbar to express their indignation at a less than flattering depiction of their religion's sacred cow.

Freedom of speech is fine for religious nutjobs like Folden as long as they don't find that expression to be offensive, in which case you find equally unstable zealots in Washington, attempting to smash the Plexiglas protecting the Constitution. Protection of offensive speech is the very reason for that clause of the First Amendment. Nobody hacks to pieces artistic expressions that they like.

Sadly, this is well within the range of crimes against the greater society of which modern activist Christians are capable on their march to turn America into a theocracy.  It is no less reprehensible than the Muslim riots that happened in reaction to the Danish newspaper cartoon.

It has been suggested that similar art depicting Mohammed or more contemporary figures in the same manner would not have been considered for display. I can’t speak for what the museum would or would not accept for display; but I know I would welcome such work.

Religion does not deserve special protection against offensive artistic expression. Nobody has an inalienable right to not be offended.

"The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals"

Montana Woman Destroys Controversial Art. 

[Loveland, Colorado] The woman has been identified as 56-year-old Kathleen Folden - a truck driver from Kalispell, Montana.   One of the frantic museum curators told me she smuggled a crowbar into the museum wrapped in her sweater.  The panel on the lower right of the series pictured below was the piece that moved her to vandalism. Entitled - "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" the piece was composed by Enrique Chagoya while master print maker Bud Shark produced this iteration. Though the damaged art was removed by police there are many other pieces still on display at the Gallery Museum on the North West Corner of Lincoln and 5th Street in Loveland.  Many prints are arranged in three dimensions and are extremely engaging.  My favorite is a piece entitled "Frontier Justice."

Exhibit A:  The display after Kathleen Folden made her "modification."

When asked by Fox News about  the vandalism of his art Enrique Chagoya responded eloquently.

"Should we as artists, or any free-thinking people, have to be subjected to fear of violent attacks for expressing our sincere concerns? I made a collage with a comic book and an illustration of a religious icon to express the corruption of something precious and spiritual.

There is no nudity, or genitals, or explicit sexual contact shown in the image. There is a dressed woman, a religious icon's head, a man showing his tongue, and a skull of a Pope in the upper right corner of the controversial page. I did not make a picture of Christ. I used symbols as one would use words in a sentence to critique corruption of the sacred by religious institutions."

 

Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez stands with a local police officer in the lobby of the Museum Gallery. He had a nervous look on his face as he texted frantically.  For me it was a happy introduction to this place there is an amazing sculpture mimicking Picasso's tormented "Guernica"  made from old car hoods in the lobby as well. I would not have been aware of the deep significance of Guernica were it not my philosophical experience discussing this piece while blogging about the World Science Festival in New York City this past June.

I purchased a free-expression souvenir!