I've listened rather dryly to the ranting about the ethical issues regarding the Canadian Federal/Provincial Governments funding the separate Catholic School System based on the spurious argument that public money should not go to religiously based enterprises. Fair enough, but we must be consistent. If we are not to fund religious enterprises, we cannot fund anti religious enterprises either. For example this "art" by the Chinese government. None can say they're religiously motivated... or are they?
Clearly this is a work to offend every Christian who sees it. And although it is not Canadian, it shows what a secular government can get away with when it wants to make a religious/anti-religious statement. It simply funds a depraved artist to produce disgusting art that blasphemes religious iconography.
The question at hand is not who's religion is being funded to the exclusion of others; it's the question of whose message a government will fund in general (for me it's if the religion we're funding right and true). If a government is to stay out of religious enterprises financially, they will have to restrict grants to the arts, film, radio and television as well as education. This seems fair.
A second issue is that a silent government is a vocal government when it comes to religion. It becomes an arbiter of what is allowed to be discussed and publicly professed. Thus we must ask, is that government silent when it defunds religious education but still funds artists, film makers and television producers who make biased and demeaning pieces on religion with no forum for public debate on the specious argument that religion is too controversial to discuss? I rather think not.
I think if these folks were to loose their funding for their atheist books and "irreverent" works do to religious content, the protest that a government should not fund religious enterprises would evaporate overnight.
Just a thought...
Loose? Did you mean lose?
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