Frank Rich Eviscerates the Smithsonian for Homophobia and Cowardice

Frank Rich

This past Sunday, New York Times columnist Frank Rich blasted the National Portrait Gallery and its parent institution the Smithsonian, for censoring “A Fire in the Belly,” a piece of gay art that suddenly became controversial after a rightwing blogger wrote about it.

Rich is absolutely devastating in dissecting the cowardice of Martin E. Sullivan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, as well as his bosses at the Smithsonian, who caved in to notorious homophobe William Donohue of the Catholic League who labeled the art "anti-Christian"for featuring eleven seconds of ants crawling across a crucifix.

As Rich and Los Angeles Times columnist Christopher Knight noted, the eleven seconds of video in "A Fire in My Belly" had run for a month without a single complaint from those attending the exhibit about same-sex themes in American portraiture titled “Hide/Seek.” Yet that didn't stop anti-gay forces on the religious right from creating yet another fake controversy to attack the gay community.

Of course, Sullivan denies that is the case. In one of the worst cases of public relations self-delusion in quite a while, Sullivan told reporters, "The decision wasn't caving in. We don't want to shy away from anything that is controversial, but we want to focus on the museum's and this show's strengths."

Martin E. Sullivan

Um, yeah. Not only does that statement prove Sullivan a coward for not standing up for a gay artist, it proves he's unfit to hold his position. If a museum director can't muster up the arguments to defend this piece of art, perhaps he'd be better off teaching teaching six-year-olds how to fingerpaint.

Rich bitingly details how easily Donohue convinced the Smithsonian to pull the work of art and how it really is simply a proof that despite all the progress of the forty years on gay rights, anti-gay bigotry and prejudice isn't only something found in small towns, but is alive and well in a place as cosmopolitan as Washington D.C. As Rich notes in his column:

It still seems an unwritten rule in establishment Washington that homophobia is at most a misdemeanor. By this code, the Smithsonian’s surrender is no big deal; let the art world do its little protests. This attitude explains why the ever more absurd excuses concocted by John McCain for almost single-handedly thwarting the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are rarely called out for what they are — “bigotry disguised as prudence,” in the apt phrase of Slate’s military affairs columnist, Fred Kaplan. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has been granted serious and sometimes unchallenged credence as a moral arbiter not just by Rupert Murdoch’s outlets but by CNN, MSNBC and The Post’s “On Faith” Web site even as he cites junk science to declare that “homosexuality poses a risk to children” and that being gay leads to being a child molester. 

It's no wonder Don't Ask/Don't Tell can't get repealed when Donohue — a notoriously hateful homophobic bigot — can make an institution like the Smithsonian buckle so easily and with such ridiculous claims.

David Wojnarowicz, a scene from "Fire in the Belly"

That can only happen when those in charge care not an iota about the rights of gay people.

It's sad that what should have been proof of how far we'd come — an exhibit of gay art at the National Portrait Gallery — instead has become symbolic of how far we have to go.