Pick a Side, the Culture Wars Are On (Again)!

Is it the 80s? Because the National Portrait Gallery just removed a David Wojnarowicz video because the Catholic League thought eleven seconds of ants crawling on a crucifix was “hate speech.” Here is an excellent backgrounder. (Trumpets the idiot scold at the League: “Smithsonian Pulls Vile Exhibit”!) Between this and Homeland Security bizarrely seizing rap websites without notice (most likely going way out of bounds to do so, and some old-school weirdness with the NYPD — oh and noted jurist Richard Posner straight-up declaring that “the problem of priests’ sexually molesting boys would be solved if priests were allowed to marry and if women could be priests,” because, what, sorry, child-molesting priests are repressed gays? — it’s feeling like a rather retrograde season of culture wars! HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE.