Outrage on Michelangelo's David

In most the Western world Michelangelo's David is considered one of the greatest pieces of art ever chiseled from stone by the hand of man. In Abilene, Texas it is considered offensive and causing a neighborhood to take up arms.

A new family moved to the neighborhood and they brought with them a knock-off of David with them, which they placed in front of their home. And now the good people of Abilene are having the vapors, fanning themselves with a fury to avoid fainting, and considering how to make these people remove the offending statue.

One woman was complaining because, "It's there. It's right there." Another told reporters that art belongs in museums, not someplace where people will have to look at it.

One horrified matron of decency says the statue caused her child to ask "Mom, what is that, uh...what can you tell a child if you haven't talked about sex yet?" I should point out that this mother apparently has an incredibly stupid child, in the next sentence she referred to the child as "him." Apparently her son doesn't know what a penis is, which, no doubt, make urination something of a challenge. I guess the poor boy spends hours pointing his ears at the urinal, or perhaps bending over the toilet with his mouth open.

I should also note the mentality of these people in that they automatically equate nudity to sex. Clue: most people are not having sex while nude and one can have sex without being nude. Though I suspect such things would be illegal in the Theorcratic Republic of Texas.

Even the comment about leaving art in museums is disingenuous in Texas. Ms. Sydney McGee had been teaching art for 28 years. She organized a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art for students. In all 89 students, 5 teachers, 12 parents and one lecturer from the museum accompanied the children. Guess what? One of the poor, pure, little darlings saw a nude statue and was corrupted for eternity, gave their soul over to Satan and rushed out to rape illegal immigrants of the same sex, while marrying 32 wives and fornicating with sheep. Okay, maybe he just saw the statue and told his hysterical, brain-dead parents.

The next day Ms. McGee was verbally bashed by the principal. A few days later the school board suspended her. And then they sent out a notice to the lynch mob, I mean the parents, saying that she would not be allowed to transfer to any other school, nor would her contract be renewed, in addition a new art teacher will be hired, presumably one that will not allow the children to actually see art. School officials won't reveal who complained or which piece of art got their heart beating so violently. After the sacking became news school officials started retroactively finding reasons for termination that were unrelated to the "statue" incident.

In Lubbock, Texas police arrested eight members of the Chippendales dancers. Police attended their performance and waited until a dance routine included a "pelvic thrust," which was then described as "simulating sex."

In Texas a clerk who sells a dildo and actually calls the item a dildo can be tried, and if convicted, forced to register as a sex offender. However, if they sell the same item and call it a "safe sex demonstration device" then it is legal. Really! Do we want a sex offender's list that includes dildo clerks as people that appear on flyers warning the neighbors to protect their kids. For some of the antics that comes out of a fundamentalist controlled state view the excerpt below. Oh, and by the way, I saw two news stations in Texas cover the store about the David statues. Both felt it necessary to have the groin of the statues blocked from view.

To illustrate how the fundamentalist Christian thinks, or doesn't, let me turn to well-known fundamentalist writer Tim LaHaye and his poison pen book The Battle for the Mind, which allegedly exposes the humanist conspiracy to turn Americans into perverts and communists. LaHaye wrote about Michelangelo's David. I quote him:

The giant replica of Michelangelo's magnificent David stands nude, overlook that beautiful city. Quite naturally, this contradicts the wisdom of God, for early in Genesis, the Creator follow man's folly by giving him animal skins to cover his nakedness... The Renaissance obsession with nude 'art form' was the forerunner of the modern humanist's demand for pornography in the name of freedom. Both resulted in the self-destructive lowering of moral standards.

I guess that is where I part company the most with the moralistic pricks in Christian fundamentalism. For them "moral standards" are defined by things like nudity and what people do with their genitals in private. For me moral standards are defined by who you treat others, whether you respect their rights to their own lives, liberty and property. So I don't get upset by statues of David, even cheap concrete knock-offs but I do get upset when people hurt one another. Fundamentalists don't mind hurting people, its sexual pleasure that offends them. I wish they would crawl back into the caves from which they emerged, and take their theology and petty, tyrannical, mythological Jehovah with them.