Sweet Jesus

News from across the pond that a gallery has decided to pull a chocolate sculpture of Jesus from an exhibition, after complaints from the right wing "Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights" that this was "hate speech". The League appear to have got their knickers in a twist because the Sculpture was naked and 'anatomically correct'.

Please take the standard rant against religious censorship as read. What really intrigued me is why are they getting upset? In the League's press releases they trot out the now traditional line that they wouldn't make a statue of Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims. Well maybe. But then again, as I understand it, there is a quite strict prohibition against representations of the prophet in Islam (as certain Danish cartoonists would be able to tell you). Now that doesn't give the right for Muslims to impose their beliefs on others and ban all representations of Muhammad, but at least you can understand what the flakier elements who call for such a ban are coming from.

I can't remember from my GCSE Religious Studies there being any prohibition against representing Jesus. In fact from the few times I've ventured into Catholic Churches I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of statues of some bloke with a beard. And as you can see its not as if the sculpture has Jesus being sodomised by a broom handle or anything.

So where's the beef? Well it seems that the good people of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (oh the irony of that name) are appalled at the idea of Jesus having a penis, or testicles for that matter. Oh the horror! when God made himself man he didn't give himself a Barbie Doll crotch. Next they will complaining about using the word scrotum in children's books.