Italian museum defies pope over crucified frog

The Catholics are crying persecution again over what they see as a blasphemous mockery of a symbol of “God’s love”.

Boo-fucking-hoo! The wooden cross was a bloody, gruesome execution device, people! Wake up!

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian museum on Thursday defied Pope Benedict and refused to remove a modern art sculpture portraying a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg that the Vatican had condemned as blasphemous.

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano decided by a majority vote that the frog was a work of art and would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition.

The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 metre 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

Called “Zuerst die Fuesse,” (Feet First), it wears a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and the feet in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth.

*snip*

Pope Benedict, who is German himself and was recently on holiday not far from Bolzano, obviously did not agree.

The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope’s name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture. Pahl released parts of the letter, which said the work “wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God’s love”.

Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer.

“Surely this is not a work of art but a blasphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people,” Pahl told Reuters by telephone.

“This decision to keep the statue there is totally unacceptable. It is a grave offence to our Catholic population,” he said.

Art experts defended the work.

“Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression,” Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome’s state museums, told an Italian newspaper on Thursday.

I think this froggie is amusing, and think it’s even funnier how superstitious people get their panties in such a knot so as to make themselves sick over one person’s artistic expression. When they do this they draw even bigger attention to the artwork. I am sure the artists welcome their public protests.

Pat Robertson is boo-hooing that Americans United for Separation of Church and State is once again stifling his speech. People For the American Way (Right Wing Watch) are trying to “stifle” their speech. The truth is that all these watchdog groups do is broadcast the words that spew forth from the mouths of Robertson, DeMint and other rightwing whackadoos to a larger audience. AND what spews out of their mouths is rightfully being criticized and lambasted for being bigoted and for promoting suppression of people who are different from them whom they deem “immoral” and a “threat to society” based on their own prejudiced, personal religious “moral judgment.” The only ones they have to blame for “embarrassing” themselves, are themselves. They probably don’t even hear what they are saying when they talk.

Jim DeMint and Pat Robertson Boo-Hooing They Are Silenced

“Whisper” my ass!

I really should start a category for Boo-hooing since these posts are growing in numbers.