Fox News Excited About Porn

Fox News is concerned that some of the economic stimulous money is going to “porn.”  See article here.  Some months ago GOP senators published a list of what they considered “wasteful.”  See CNN listing here.  Nowhere on the list was mention of any activities from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).  The NEA was the source of the funding that Fox and others are unhappy with.

Fox News helpfully provides a link to the official NEA list of stimulus grant recipients.  See full list here.  I’ve selected some grants from the list:

Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Inc. ($50,000)

American Boychoir School ($50,000)

California Lawyers for the Arts, Inc. ($50,000)

Cathedral Arts Projects Inc ($25,000)

Lawyers?  Why do lawyers need stimulus funding from the NEA?  What, exactly, do they have to do with producing art?  Why isn’t Fox News indignant about lawyers?  Do we really need to fund more parasites under the guise of “art?”  I would think that Fox News would be all over left-leaning lawyers receiving taxpayer money.

Cathedral Arts Project appears to have a religious focus in their “art” activities.  According to their web site they were by St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral.  Why isn’t Fox News upset by this clear support of religious activity by the NEA?  I’m probably exageratting the influence of religion in the activities of the Cathedral Arts Project; I don’t actually know anything about them other than the snippets gleaned from a quick review of their website.

While I’m not a porn consumer or afficianado of various forms of “adult entertainment,” as a taxpayer I’m not particularly concerned about something that Fox sees as “perverted.”  Why?  It really comes down to the First Ammendment guarantee of free speech and to the separation of church and state.  While we might find the particular art form to be in poor taste, we must support the rights of the artists to create it and the rights of adults to consume it.

The NEA to be fair and respect the First Ammendment to the Constitution has to issue grants to all comers equally without regard to the perceived merits of the “art.”  Of course, whether or not there should even be a National Endowment for the Arts is an entirely different debate.