How Religion Supresses Freedom of Speech in Europe

[Rudey]

These Europeans...first they chop their citizen's heads off in their revolutions and now they can't handle a little art, literature, and theater...


Christian groups and tens of thousands of viewers complained to the British Broadcasting Corporation earlier this year for airing "Jerry Springer - The Opera," a musical laden with swear words and featuring Jesus wearing diapers.

In late 2004, a Birmingham theater scrapped a play depicting sexual abuse and murder in a Sikh temple after violent protests, and in November last year Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was murdered after his film about violence against women in Islamic societies was aired.

And now, U.K. museum Tate defends nixing sculpture that may offend Muslims. The Tate Britain decided not to include "God is Great" (1991), in a display of works by British-based John Latham, infuriating the artist and renewing debate over where to draw the line when censoring the arts.

"God is Great" features copies of the Bible, Koran and Talmud - sacred texts of Christians, Muslims, and Jews respectively - embedded in thick glass.

-Rudey