Friday, December 12, 2008

Gay-bashing Mormons censor BYU art project, because it was kind of gay

by John Aravosis (DC)

One is gay, the other isn't. And the artist won't tell you which is which. That proved too much for the bigots running the Mormon church, and its Borg incubator, otherwise known as Brigham Young "University" (air-quotes added). Apparently exposing young impressionable Mormons to art, and another point of view, runs too great a risk of damaging their fragile narrow-minded sense of hate and intolerance.

From Dan Savage:
Says the artist...
Apparently the topic of homosexuality is a bit much for the BYU audience and my part of our Fine Art Classes show was taken down today. It seems that censorship is favored over support and love. This really saddens me. I found out because a friend of mine went to the show and said that my peices had been removed and the show had been rearranged.
The show was rearranged so that no one who attended would realize that the works on display had been censored for political/religious reasons. So... shhh. Don't tell anyone.The student artist took pictures of openly gay BYU students—openly gay and openly ballsy—and a companion portrait of a supportive friend or family member. The artist didn't label the portraits; you don't know who in each pair of portraits is the fearsome, terrible, ungodly gay, and who is the tragically deluded enabler of evil—excuse me, "the supporter." You can see the pictures... here. But they deserve a wider viewing—hey, maybe the Salt Lake City Weekly ("We Not All Crazy Bigots Down Here, You Know!") could put them on its cover.

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