'Piss Christ' offends Christian law students, sparks wrong debate

Must Christian law students be forced to view anti-Christian representations during their holy season of Lent? As you may recall from Tuesday's article, the Duke Law American Civil Liberties Union sponsored a month-long exhibit featuring several graphic representations which have been deemed offensive by numerous members of the law school community. The exhibit was prominently displayed in the entranceway to the law school library. Objections focus on three pieces: Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ," a photograph of a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth submerged in urine; a photograph of a female toddler with her dress raised exposing her lack of undergarments; and a photograph of two fully nude adults.

Although offended by all three photographs, I, as President of the Christian Legal Society, decided to give voice to the offense experienced by Christian law students who, every time we entered or exited the library, were confronted with a perverse and disdainful representation of our Lord and Savior during the moment of his worst suffering and greatest triumph.

This offense was heightened by the fact that the exhibit was to be displayed throughout much of the Christian holy season of Lent, when Christians are engaged in a 40 day process of heightened prayer and penitence as we prepare to celebrate the glory of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday. As a result, I distributed an e-mail to the law school community articulating the offense experienced by Christians, expressing our hope that the offensive picture would be removed by the ACLU or the administration, and asking others to forward their objections to the ACLU leadership and the administration. Contrary to the language used in the recent article, I never urged that the exhibit be "dismantled," only that "Piss Christ" be removed.

Interestingly, the ACLU leadership declares the exhibit a success when, in their own words, the goal was "to encourage debate about whether the [National Endowment of the Arts] violated the first and fifth amendment by not financially supporting these artists." Subsequent debate in the law school, as the focus of Tuesday's article demonstrates, however, has been on the offensiveness of the above-described pictures and whether they should be prominently displayed in the library.

If the ACLU really hoped to engender debate on the current Supreme Court case, or even on the broader issue of Congress' decision to revoke NEA funding of obscene art, then the focus of the ensuing debate should have rendered the display a failure. The fact that the ACLU considers the display a success indicates, however, that the goal of the exhibit was, more broadly, to shock and offend, and, through that process, to foster debate on obscenity and "free speech" more generally.

The ACLU leadership was allowed to conclude Tuesday's article with the following statement directed toward my e-mail: "We can't allow one person to say, 'I think this art means this, so the rest of you can't look at it.'" First of all, my perspective did not represent that of an individual, but rather that of a community that was being offended. Secondly, I did not claim to say what the art "means." Instead, I merely stated that a representation of the crucifix encompassed in bubbling human waste was an offense to Christians. The message that the artist or the exhibitor sought to communicate is of little relevance to the reality of that offense.

Finally, judging from their statement, the ACLU leadership seems to suffer from an inability to distinguish between the use of discretion in public displays versus the attempt to censor. My effort was to have the offensive picture removed from a place where law students who found the work offensive would not have it forced upon them. If the attempt to have the picture removed had been successful, there would still be numerous avenues available to those who wanted to contemplate Andres Serrano's work.

Ironically, despite the above quote, the ACLU really is saying, "We think this art will stimulate important discussions, so the rest of you must look at it." To put it in their language of rights, the ACLU believes that their right to shock and offend others into discussion about issues important to their organization trumps the right of Christian law students, during our holy season of Lent, to be able to enter and exit the library without experiencing the offense of having to see a representation of the Body of Christ, a body to which we belong, submerged in human waste.