[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 12214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 12214]]

                    THE NEA'S POLITICAL PRODUCTIONS

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 15, 2000

  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, in recent weeks, the House has spent 
considerable time discussing the Fiscal Year 2001 appropriations bills, 
and I have joined my colleagues in debating the best uses of the 
American taxpayers' hard-earned money. As we evaluate the Department of 
the Interior Appropriations bill, I believe it is necessary to bring to 
light an egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.
  In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson created a program intended to 
advance and promote artistic endeavors in this country called the 
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). On the surface, this seems a 
worthwhile cause. After all, who doesn't want to support ballet, 
theater, paintings and sculpture designed to enlighten and uplift 
audiences?
  I am a strong supporter of the arts. In fact my office sponsors an 
art competition so students in my district can compete in the 
nationwide art competition sponsored by this House. I believe in 
supporting local artists to express their artistic talents. That is why 
I find it unfortunate NEA funding is often misused to support endeavors 
not intended to uplift and enlighten, but to advance ideas that are 
clearly obscene, anti-family and sacrilegious. This is more than 
unfortunate. It is unacceptable.
  Just this past April, the Irondale Ensemble Project performed the 
play ``The Pope and The Witch'' at the Theater for New City in New 
York's East Village. This production was written by Dario Fo, an 
Italian satirist, communist and anti-Catholic activist. ``The Pope and 
The Witch,'' portrays a paranoid pope addicted to heroin who is 
influenced by a witch dressed as a nun. As the play unfolds, various 
positions in the Catholic clergy are portrayed in an extremely 
sacrilegious manner including the portrayal of a drug-addicted pontiff 
promoting abortion and the legalization of drugs. In the play, he is 
gunned down by his own church. Fo's production maliciously describes 
the teachings of the Catholic Church and trivializes the role of its 
clergy, glorifying the use of narcotics. This production is offensive 
and a reprehensible use of hard-eamed taxpayer dollars.
  Is this the type of ``art'' the NEA had in mind when it gave the 
Irondale Ensemble Project a $15,000 grant and the Theater for the New 
City a $12,000 grant? As the representative of Colorado's Fourth 
Congressional District, I cannot approve $27,000 of taxpayer money 
being allocated to a political production which attacks Catholicism and 
promotes illegal drug use. This is a travesty and complete violation of 
the trust the American people have placed in the Congress to spend 
their money wisely.
  Mr. Speaker, I support the amendment to reduce the NEA's funding 
offered by Mr. Stearns of Florida. Mr. Stearns amendment would shift a 
small amount--2 percent--of the NEA funds to wildland fire management. 
The NEA is funded at $98 million. Private funds for the arts are in 
excess of $ 10 billion. This is $10,098,000,000 for the arts. Mr. 
Speaker, just outside of my hometown of Ft. Collins, Colorado a massive 
wildfire is raging, destroying homes and wildlife habitat. This is only 
one of thousands of wildfires not just in the West, but the entire 
United States. Is 2 percent too much to ask for a serious threat which 
is affecting thousands of people? Is 2 percent too much to ask for when 
you contrast my plea with the highly offensive and political 
``productions'' the taxpayers are involuntarily funding through the 
NEA? Clearly, such a small transfer is not too much to ask, and is the 
right and responsible action for Congress to take. How can anyone argue 
seriously for more funding for productions like ``The Pope and The 
Witch'' against fire management funds?
  The Stearns amendment is a concerted effort to regain those federal 
dollars that were so egregiously misused. The amendment sends a clear 
message to the NEA: Congress will not support the use of taxpayer 
dollars to promote anti-Catholic hate speech or any other anti-
religious bigotry. I am outraged, not only as a Catholic, but as a 
citizen of this country founded on principles of religious tolerance. 
The government of the United States has no place in financially 
endorsing the efforts of a communist playwright in his political 
mission of defaming a sacred institution which is embraced by millions 
of Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I am an ardent defender of free speech, and believe 
firmly in the right of free Americans to speak against any virtue, yet 
we must not confuse the right to ``free speech'' with the perversion of 
``subsidized speech.'' Mr. Fo's right to say what he will clearly does 
not entail a right to public funding. In fact the greater offense is to 
the consciencious Americans forced to subsidize Fo's bigotry at the 
hands of the NEA's despotic administrators.
  It is time the United States government remove itself from the 
dangerous practice of supporting anti-religious campaigns of any kind 
whether in the name of art. The amendment is a necessary step in doing 
just that.

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