Hypocrisy on Parade!

Times Runs Photo of Dung-Clotted “Virgin Mary”

On Tuesday, the Times wrote in an editorial on the Danish cartoons of Mohammad that “The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.”

Apparently the Arts pages didn’t get the memo, because it runs a photo of Chris Ofili’s dung-clotted “Holy Virgin Mary” in Wednesday’s Arts section story by Michael Kimmelman, who calls the Danish cartoons “callous and feeble.”

This is the most striking example yet of the double standard by the Times when it comes to art that offends religious sensibilities.

Double Standard: Mohammed Cartoons and “Piss Christ”
New York Times reporter Craig Smith found the Mohammed cartoons more inflammatory than he did the actual fact of Muslims burning embassies in Syria and Lebanon in protest. Even the headline to his Sunday Week in Review story suggests that the Danish newspapers’ exercise of free speech was somehow irresponsible, likening it to pouring fuel on a flame: “Adding Newsprint to the Fire.”

Back in the 1990s, the Times took a far different tone regarding two excretory-based exhibits offensive to Christians -- though those controversies passed without the violent protests, death threats, or fire-bombings of embassies we are seeing today. Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” consisted of a crucifix submerged in a tank of Serrano’s urine.

Full details can be found at http://www.timeswatch.org/.