From The Annals of The New York Times: An Alternate History

Apr 6, 1989 2:10 PM EDT
by U. Gottabee Kiddin
New York
WORLD'S CHRISTIANS PARTICIPATE IN RIOTING

In the early spring of this year, photographer Andres Serrano published a photograph of a crucifix of Jesus submerged in a vat of urine. Initially the exhibit, on view with other works of art including the far less controversial Madonna and Child II which featured immersion in the same fluid attracted little attention except from a few art aficionados.

When word eventually got out that this work had been supported by a $15,000.00 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, the fundamentalist outrage was palpable. Hearings were held in the US Senate by Jesse Helms and Alfonse D'Amato which included the comments following this.

From the Congressional Record:

Mr. President*, several weeks ago, I began to receive a number of letters, phone calls, and postcards from constituents throughout the Senate concerning art work by Andres Serrano. They express a feeling of shock, of outrage, and anger.

#2. They said, "How dare you spend our taxpayers' money on this trash." They all objected to taxpayers' money being used for a piece of so-called art work which, to be quite candid, I am somewhat reluctant to utter its title. This so-called piece of art is a deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity. The art work in question is a photograph of the crucifix submerged in the artist's urine.

#3. This artist received $15,000 for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, through the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.

In New York, Washington, Paris, London, Berlin and in much of the Middle East rioting broke out in indignation that a revered religious icon was immersed in urine. In Saudi Arabia King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz led 10,000 Muslims on a march proclaiming the sacrilege of having a revered prophet treated in such a cavalier manner.

In Berlin, the anger that was felt by the German Government was equally obvious. Chancellor Helmut Josef Michael Kohl noted that all of Germany stood behind the Christians who were angry. In Paris, François Mitterrand noted "We are all Christians now!

New York seems to have been the hardest hit with cars up and down 5th avenue being torched by angry Christians. Many with signs saying "Behead the heretics." Yet, there are those who strongly support freedom of expression, however when they marched in Central Park, they were set upon by a screaming mob and pummeled within an inch of their lives. No arrests were made however as the police seemed to have vanished from the area around Central Park.

In Washington, President Bush called for calm and rational reflection on the meaning of the sacrilege and to take action in the form of passing laws against such sacrilege again. This was strongly supported in the United States Senate most notably by Senators Kennedy, Biden, Byrd, Dodd and Thurmond.

Borders Bookstores, parent of Walden Books have removed all "art" books from their shelves because of the fear that Christians might trash the stores and harm their staff and customers.

In an Editorial in the New York Times yesterday, this paper and its publisher came out strongly against the trashing of peoples religious icons:

We heartily condem any attempt to claim under the guise of free expression and the First Amendment that willfully denegrates a great world's religion.

This is of course, fiction. Sadly, it is not April Fool's fiction.

UPDATE: Via Dr. Sanity comes this bit of truly chilling future history. Read it if you dare. It's long but totally frightening