Rohrabacher and Funding for the Arts

Re the proposed amendment to restrict National Endowment for the Arts funding for “indecent art,” introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms and championed by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita):

Although I’ve always been against censorship of any kind, the above amendment didn’t incense me enough to write, until I read Rohrabacher’s remark quoted in The Times: “I don’t believe that the government in a time of severe deficit crisis, should be spending money on frivolous things like the arts in the first place.”

What pre-Cro-Magnon mentality would coin such a phrase? Indeed, as far as Rohrabacher, U.S. congressman of the late 20th Century, is concerned, even the fabulous animal paintings on the walls of the Lascaux caves should never have happened.

What “frivolity” compelled those first artists to paint while “decent” men hunted and fought wars?

Let us all take a stand against these latter day “Savonarolas” who would use the “indecent art” issue as a vehicle to quell all funding of the arts. Also, doesn’t “indecent art” somehow evoke similar labels? Such as decadent, bourgeois and unnatural art, used by Communist and Nazi censors? Oh, woe to us all! and who will be the judge?

MARICA HEFTI

Costa Mesa