GO PAINT YOUR PICTURES, BUT NOT WITH MY MONEY

The current flap in New York City isn't the first time a work of art has generated a national scandal. At issue is an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that includes an obscene depiction of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung.

Supporters of the exhibit -- wouldn't you like to know who supports such garbage, besides Hillary Clinton? -- claim a threat to withdraw government funding from the museum because of the exhibit amounts to a violation of the First Amendment.

Ah. The First Amendment. Always handy when there doesn't seem to be any other good excuse.

How in the dickens could withholding funding for anything so offensive be construed as violating the free-speech aspect of the First Amendment? In using its money for more appropriate and more worthwhile endeavors, any government would be making a choice based on community standards. What's wrong with that? It certainly isn't the same as a government saying some lame-brained artist can't be sacrilegious. No government has said that.

If it takes government funding to produce art whose purpose is nothing more than to shock -- even to disgust -- the public, then the arts are in terrible shape.

New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani should stick to his guns. He's right on this one.