No one expected that liberal media obituaries on Jesse Helms would be kind. But some might expect they would be factual. This line leaped out from the Washington Post front-pager by Bart Barnes and Matt Schudel:
In 1989, he drew wide-ranging national support, and derision, for his attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts after it funded works by artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, which Helms considered homoerotic and anti-Christian.
“Helms considered”?
These reporters suggest by their ten-foot-pole prose style that the senator’s criticisms of state-funded art were untrue or at least exaggerated. These controversies are nearly 20 years old, so there may be many people who don’t remember the fuss. Maybe the Post reporters could take the time to describe Serrano’s most infamous art work, or at least share its title: “Piss Christ.” Or they could note Mapplethorpe’s affinity for “highly aestheticized photographs of sadomasochistic sexual acts between men,” as even the liberals at Slate will admit. It’s not just something “Helms considered” homoerotic.
It is one thing for the Post to object to Helms arguing that government-subsidized art should have to bow to taxpayers’ sensibilities, or if they object to Helms exploiting these controversial works for political gain. It is another thing entirely for the alleged fact-finders at the Post to deny that the sky is blue — or that the leather is black. Or that Christ has been mocked.