The Los Angeles Times reports that the play "Corpus Christi" presents Jesus Christ as a "lusty, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed homosexual." And Indiana state Sen. Michael Young can grudgingly accept that. "It may be vulgar, dirty, vile and everything else, but I guess we do have the First Amendment," he says.
Yet Young's tolerance only goes so far. Students at an Indiana state college plan to stage the play next month -- in a theater supported by taxpayer dollars. And Young deems that not only unacceptable, but illegal. That's why he and 20 other state legislators have joined 11 outraged citizens in filing a lawsuit to block the performance. A federal judge considered the case yesterday and could issue an injunction blocking the students from staging "Corpus Christi" at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
The plaintiffs' argument runs like this: If government is not allowed to promote religion -- by permitting prayer in schools, for example -- then it should not be allowed to destroy religion either. And they deem "Corpus Christi" supremely destructive.
They have no problem with a private theater company performing the play. But they do object to a publicly supported institution such as the university using tax dollars to stage it on campus. To them, that implies that Indiana state government is endorsing the message "Corpus Christi" presents. And they interpret that message as an attack on Christianity.