Darrel and Joy -
I'm seeing this deal from the eyes of having had 30-years experience as an art curator, so my perceptions are slightly off-beat in a patriots and warriors forum (what else is new).
Here's what I see:
> That exceptionally beautiful and meaningful monument in Alabama was, in the end, a sculpture, protected speech. If Andres Serrano's hideously offensive 'PISS CHRIST" work of "art" can get funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, then a Ten Commandments sculpture can be in a public courthouse in Alabama, even IF it was put there by the Judge without permission. Who gives a rat's a--. Beauty is beauty, a bounteous treasure to behold...and besides, I'm an unrepentant agnostic who happens to strongly favor that THOU SHALT NOT KILL commandment, for one.
> The net effect of the monument's removal yesterday will only be that anyone, from either side (aetheists and devout christians alike), who EVER saw it there will ALWAYS hereafter still see it there, in its rightful place, burned permanently into their mind's imaginative eye. Not one conscious person in America will ever forget exactly what it looked like and exactly what its message was. So much for history being written for the benefit of the "victors". They can hide the thing in a supply closet, or behind the boilers, but SOMEBODY is gonna see it there, and EVERYBODY still breathing will know precisely what it looked like and meant, even when its gone.
> Since the more-american-than-thou "rights of the minority" have won the day in getting the sculpture removed, then I am sure that same minority would be more than happy to have the "rights of the minority" of the KKK or Black Muslims be AS fully implemented at that same Alabama courthouse! Poor babies...
> I have no problem whatsoever, again regardless of how it got put where it is, with there being any monument dedicated to homosexual veterans... for the very same reason, it is a sculpture, protected speech. Word has it that J. Edgar himself was a cross-dresser, and McCarthy's own chief legal aide, Roy Cohn, was gay, Alexander The Great was as gay as pink drawers; only three of uncountable other examples. Homosexuals have always been a part of government and military existence, and will always be... and I am completely unalterably sure that the greatest majority of them serve with honor in spite of their kinky sex habits, if not sometimes with extreme valor.
Your post about the irony of these two situations juxtaposed is, however, right exactly on point. You cannot imagine the s--t I am getting from my professional colleagues for taking the stance as described above about the Ten Commandments monument.
If NOTHING else, America is a place where we celebrate and protect free speech of many kinds. Those two monuments aren't really, truly, hurting anybody.
|