Christ With Erection Elicits Lawsuit

Seems like the religious right is on the prowl again: first going after frogs and now, after a sexually aroused messiah (no, not Obama).

Lawyers for Emily Mapfuwa, a Christian who was offended by a Terence Koh sculpture of Christ with an erection, initiated a private prosecution against the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art for “outraging public decency and causing harassment, alarm and distress to the public.” Ms. Mapfuwa argues the Baltic would not have dared depict the prophet Muhammad in such a way.

After complaining to the Northumbria police and geting nowhere, Mapfuwa approached the “Christian Legal Centre – an organisation that aims to ‘promote and protect the biblical freedoms of Christian believers in the United Kingdom’ – agreed to pay her legal costs. The CLC also funded the case brought by Stephen Green against the BBC over Jerry Springer – The Opera. A CLC spokesman said Mapfuwa believed in freedom of expression, but ‘this statue served no other purpose than to offend Christians and to denigrate Christ’.

More from The Guardian here.