KANSAS—Facebook‘s porn filters were apparently so offended by a statue by sculptor Yu Chang that, as the Kansas ACLU put it, depicts “a fractured, topless woman taking a photograph of her exposed (bronze) breasts,” that they removed a post last week by the ACLU that linked to an article about the artwork, which has been the subject of a concerted campaign by social conservatives to get it removed ever since it was installed at the Overland Park Arboretum, south of Kansas City, in 2011. The removal of the link was accompanied by a 24-hour ban on the ACLU’s ability to post to its Facebook page, according to the Washington Post.
Mistakes happen, of course, but in its efforts to appeal the mistaken censorship, the ACLU found out the hard way that getting through to Facebook is a daunting task in and of itself, and that, as the Post put it today, “That's a happy ending of sorts for the ACLU, but as the organization's Lee Rowland points out, ordinary users may not be so lucky. If you don't represent a prominent national organization, it can be a challenge to get Facebook's attention.”
Needless to say, Facebook’s policy with respect to removing images associated with porn does not extend to statues such as Chang’s “Accept or Reject,” despite claims by the Kansas and Missouri chapters of the American Family Association (AFA) that the statue is obscene and—get this!—promotes “sexting.” According to ACLU attorney Lee Rowland, Facebook’s policy actually contains a specific exception for Michelangelo’s David, perhaps the most famous nude in history.
“Chang may not be as talented an artist as Michelangelo, but it certainly seems like his work should qualify for the same exemption,” averred the Post.
To the AFA and its ilk, however, artistic considerations are secondary to eradicating sexual speech in all its varied forms. Who, after all, can forget the decision in 2002 by former Attorney General John Ashcroft to spend $8,000 on blue drapes to cover the partially nude sculpture of "Lady Justice" found in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice so that he would not be photographed with the bare breasts during official functions? The DoJ said at the time that Ashcroft was unaware of the new drapes, but it’s more likely his staff was well aware of his extreme views on the subject and did not need to ask permission to cover the boobs, real or not!
Jump forward a decade, and not much has changed as far as social conservatives are concerned. The war to reclaim American modesty not only continues but has been ratcheted up to fever pitch. What might have been a relatively low-level attempt to deal with a partially nude, though decidedly non-obscene, sculpture has become a full-throated campaign to give conservative groups far more legal power than they once had to influence grand juries.
According to the ACLU, “Kansas is among a small handful of states that have a citizen-empanelled grand jury law on the books. Under this process, a group can start a petition drive to seek a particular criminal indictment. If they reach the required number of signatures—around 4,000 in Johnson County, Kansas—a grand jury is empanelled to investigate violations of Kansas law. But until this year, the citizens' influence over the process stopped there.
“That changed in 2013,” it continued. “Angry after a string of grand juries failed to return indictments alleging illegal abortion and pornography, groups like Kansans for Life advocated for a bill expanding citizen involvement in the grand jury process. The bill passed and is now law. Now the law requires the grand jury to call the petition organizer as its first witness, and permits the jury to pay for a special counsel or investigator of its choosing—even to replace the government prosecutor. Empowered by the expanded role of citizens in the grand jury process, the AFA is taking a second swing at the bronze breasts in the arboretum, and has started a second signature drive.”
It’s all for a good cause, of course. According to local AFA leader Phillip Cosby, the statue is damaging the area’s children, and he intends to prove as much by providing “a list of experts who might be called to testify about the harm the statue might present, especially to children,” reported The Kansas City Star.
“We have a solid case on the harms to minors,” added Cosby.
Wittingly or not, Facebook’s porn filters agree.
Image: "Accept or Reject" by Yu Chang
