You may have heard about Glenn Beck's recent kerfuffle. It seems that he took a figuring depicting Barack Obama as Jesus Christ and put in in a jar. He then filled the jar with urine. It turns out that the fluid was actually beer, which is pretty humourous for what should be obvious reasons.
Now I don't watch or listen to Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. Primarily because I find some of their attempts at sarcastic criticism to cross lines that I am unwilling to cross.
But this particular stunt is perfect.
A few years back, an artist by the name of Andres Serrano created a bit of a kerfuffle with his "art" image of a plastic figurine of Jesus on the cross submerged in a yellow fluid that Mr. Serrano claimed to be his own urine. The piece won an award that was funded in part by the National Endowment of the Arts and became yet another in a series of incidents that suggest that the NEA is wasting our tax dollars.
Fast foward to today, and we have folks that are supportive of Mr. Obama's agenda making favorable comparisons between Jesus and the President.
Mr. Beck then takes that near-religious fervor and criticizes it a way that mimics that of Mr. Serrano's artistic criticism of Christianity.
We end up with the folks that thought that Mr. Serrano and the NEA had done nothing wrong now being outraged when similar contempt is expressed towards one of their icons. Apparently, do as they say, but not as they do?
It most certainly is not a step in the right direction with respect to comity and tolerance between different points of view. But it a timely reminder that if one expects a certain amount of deference toward one's icons, then perhaps one should demonstrate a certain amount of deference towards the icons that are important to others.
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