Library stands by decision on artwork
By Hannah C. Glover, Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN, CT — The Meriden Public Library Wednesday defended its decision to ban certain images of Jesus Christ in a public display area.
Meanwhile, a national Catholic organization blasted the library for prejudice, and the American Library Association said that the local library's policy for exhibits contradicts the very association bill of rights to which it refers.
"It's a no-win situation," Meriden Public Library Director Marcia Trotta said.
The library rejected three of Mary Morley's pieces, Trotta said, though Tuesday the local artist said the library had asked her to exclude five.
Trotta did not object to the images of Christ in Morley's work, as much as her depictions of events, including the Crucifixion, Jesus carrying the cross and the Nativity, she said.
"Those were the ones that portrayed a particular message," Trotta said. They were also the images that were most important to Morley, the painter said. Without at least one, the art wasn't worth showing, said Morley, so she called off the show she had planned for a year.
"I believe that if we physically display it, we've taken responsibility for the message, even if her name is on it," Trotta said.
The library is taxpayer-funded, and is defined by law as a limited public space. As such, it can't endorse the tenets of one faith over another.
"It may mean that individuals who see it are offended and may never ever walk into a library again, and I can't be responsible for that," Trotta said.
Books, whether about Christianity or Satan worship, are different, she said.
"You can decide to take a book out," Trotta said, "but you are making a conscious decision."
Paintings the library would accept included a tribute to the victims of 9-11, and portraits of Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa and President John F. Kennedy.
"Those are historical figures," Trotta said.
The library also accepted paintings of Biblical scenes, including Moses accepting the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. "He just looks like an old man. You would really have to know the whole story behind it," Trotta said.
The story behind Jesus is too well known, and more importantly, tied to Christianity, Trotta said.
"This is just nonsense," said Louis J. Giovino, a spokesman for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a national organization based in New York City. "You're specifically censoring Christianity here."
The organization, which professes to protect religious and civil rights of Catholics, issued a statement asking the American Library Association to refuse to give money to the Meriden Public Library. In 1996, The Meriden Public Library received a $3,000 grant from the national library group.
"In the name of protecting kids from seeing a portrait of Jesus, the censors are busy practicing intolerance. Perhaps they would have been more at home with a portrait of Lucifer," Catholic League President William Donohue said in the statement released Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Giovino criticized the library for refusing to install software on public computers that would block access to certain Internet sites, specifically those that include pornography.
"We can't," library Director of Community Affairs Victoria Navin said. "It's up to the parent. That's not for library officials to do. We'd be sued by the American Civil Liberties Union."
When it comes to a possible lawsuit from Morley, though, Navin referred to library policy. That policy, which is 30 years old and was most recently renewed by the library's board of directors in 1999, states:
"The library will not accept exhibits which are judged ‘inappropriate,' or ‘offensive' to any segment of the community. Community standards and the American Library Association Bill of Rights will be used as guidelines in making this decision."
Judith Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, said the Meriden Public Library's policy doesn't make sense.
"I don't even know what offensive means," Krug said. "Certainly, this is not what the library bill of rights says."
The ALA's bill of rights states that "libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas."
Krug dismissed differentiating between books and paintings in plain view.
"If you don't like it, avert your eyes," she said.
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