The NEA gets gay-bashed; gay themes again become the focus of a pitched battle over federal funding of the arts - National Endowment for the Arts - Brief Article

Gay themes again become the focus of a pitched battle over federal funding of the arts

Once again the National Endowment for the Arts is under attack. And once again it is projects with a clear gay and lesbian bent that are inflaming conservatives on Capitol Hill.

"I was shocked that taxpayer money had been used to support the production of this film," wrote Rep. Peter Hoekstra in a January 16 letter to NEA chairwoman Jane Alexander. The film in question--Cheryl Dunye's award-winning The Watermelon Woman--is one of several gay- and lesbian-themed works cited by the Michigan Republican as evidence of "the serious possibility that taxpayer money is being used to fund the production and distribution of patently offensive and possibly pornographic movies." Hoekstra says he plans to delve into the NEA's operations with hearings later this year.

At risk is the agency's very existence. After years of bashing the agency when Democrats controlled Congress, Republicans shifted to a more direct strategy of attempting to dismantle it when they assumed the majority in 1995. When lawmakers were handing out dollars last year they gave the NEA a $99.5-million appropriation--a far cry from its top appropriation of nearly $176 million in fiscal 1992. House Republicans thought it would be the last pot of money the NEA would get; they expected to kill the agency during the fiscal 1998 budget cycle.

The difference this time, however, is that it seems President Clinton is willing to spend political capital to save the agency. "Instead of cutting back on our modest efforts to support the arts and humanities, I believe we should stand by them" Clinton said during his State of the Union address February 4. And on February 25 Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the president wants Congress to spend more on the arts and humanities even as he moves toward a balanced budget. "It's something we feel very strongly about," she said.

In his own fiscal 1998 budget, Clinton is proposing spending $136 million for the NEA. So far, Republicans are being cautious with their response. "It's a new Congress, and we have to look at what the will of this majority is," says Barbara Wainman, a top aide to Rep. Ralph Regula, an Ohio Republican. Regula is chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the NEA.

Meanwhile, Hoekstra and his allies are on the warpath, and they're finding ammunition in the 25th anniversary catalog of Women Make Movies Inc., an independent producer and distributor of films and videotapes that received about $112,700 in NEA grants over three years. Besides The Watermelon Woman, Hoekstra's letter cites catalog listings for Seventeen Roams a comedy about what lesbians do in bed; Ten Cents a Dance, a three-part film that includes a segment depicting anonymous bathroom sex between two men; and BloodSisters, a look at the lesbian S/M community.

"I do not believe the above videos, as described, are the type of `art' Congress intended to fund through the NEA," Hoekstra said in the letter. "In fact, these listings have the appearance of a veritable taxpayer funded peep show.'"

A spokesman for Hoekstra said that what made the projects objectionable wasn't gay themes but depictions of explicit sex. Indeed, one reviewer described The Watermelon Woman as having "the hottest dyke sex scene ever recorded on celluloid."

To ward off such criticism, the NEA restructured itself last year so that rather than giving funding to arts groups to spend on a variety of projects, it now awards grants for specific projects. Still, critics will be looking closely in April when the NEA announces most of its grants for 1997 to see if "objectionable" items continue to receive funds.

And just as those grants are announced, committees in the House and Senate will be meeting to determine how much--if any--money the NEA should get in fiscal 1998. "For the NEA, it's a life-and-death battle," says Matthew Freeman, senior vice president of People for the American Way, a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights group. "If it ends up being a battle where the only troops brought to the battlefield are from right-wing organizations. Then the NEA is going to be in for a difficult fight."

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