My first though--before checking out any of the links--was that I damn well wish legislators were spending time taking care of people who are going to soon have no unemployment checks, which means no money, which means no food--that, to me, is WAY MORE IMPORTANT than fussing about an art exhibit.

So then I went and took a look, and first I looked at the video, and I wasn't sure what it was trying to say. It had lots of scary images (the blood, dripping, the mummies). It seemed to be about suffering? In the context of the soundtrack, the implication is that somehow we condemn suffering as unclean (and this is a bad thing)? The ants on the crucifix--I'm not sure why that's so particularly upsetting to people--it's nothing compared to the famous "Piss Christ". Of course, saying that something's not as bad as something else isn't going to make people who are offended feel less offended. But really, even from a religious point of view, it's possible to interpret it this way: Jesus was disrespected, humiliated, ignored. We will here show this by showing a crucifix with ants crawling around on it. In other words, just because you show an image doesn't mean you approve of it!

But I was wondering, still what the exhibit was all about, so I went to the Smithsonian page and saw that it was about sexuality and sexual difference. Then everything became clear: the congressfolk were *primed* to find something offensive, because their homophobic alarm bells had been sounded.