Chocolate holiday

I can't help but be saddened by the outcry over an artist's rendition of Jesus sculpted in chocolate. The exhibit was shut down before it even opened in a midtown Manhattan hotel.

Why is having artistic expression suppressed a triumph? It was not being funded by tax dollars. No one was forced to go look at it. This thin-skinned response is supposed to be about faith?

This sculpture is a statement about the commercialization of a religious holiday. Is it not clever to create something that intersects the two most prevalent images at Easter? Never fear. In case anyone has missed it, there are lots of pieces in, say, the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum of Art that depict any number of reverential, suffering poses of Jesus.

This is the greatest country in the world, but we need to thicken our skin and buck up. If your employer rips your religion or your race or your gender, that's a problem. If someone creates a piece of art that offends you, it's called freedom. Don't look at it. Don't patronize the hotel that was going to display it. Pray that it melts.

True faith is not rattled by a piece of art.