LETTERS: DECISON TIME FOR NEA FEDERAL FUNDS

To the editor:

The Moral Majority has finally been heard in the halls of Congress. Recently, several members of Congress took a stand against the National Endowment for the Arts' unwise use of our tax dollars to support pornographic, anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-family works of "art." We have helped to spark a movement to eliminate taxpayer funding of the NEA by supporting our Christian lobbyists in Washington.

It seems impossible, yet the NEA used your tax money to fund vile exhibitions such as "Watermelon Woman," a movie about lesbianism which was reviewed as "the hottest dyke sex scenes every recorded on celluloid," or the Whitney Museum's display of an adults-only Santa's workshop with characters depicted performing lewd acts on stuffed animals, or an HIV-positive "performance artist" who slashed another man's back with a knife, live and on stage. He mopped up the blood and sent the bloody fabric over the audience's heads on a clothesline.

The NEA unashamedly supports pornography and blasphemy. Who could forget its funding for "art" which was a crucifix suspended in a vat of urine? The NEA funds this rot with an annual budget of $99 million. And it can't keep track of the money. We must stop this waste of our money and this attack on our Christian heritage.

Many museums, symphonies, community theaters and opera companies are raising their own funds -- and thriving. But too often the NEA doesn't seek out and support true art. It funds immorality, depravity and blasphemy. In fact, the NEA chairman, Jane Alexander, has said she intends for the NEA to introduce people gently to gay themes all across the country. And I mean gently, because if you start with a very overt thing, people get scared. She knows we object, yet she is intent on indoctrinating our children and grandchildren.

For years, NEA supporters have forced this trash on us, but now God has placed people who understand our concerns in a position to stop government-funded pornography and blasphemy. We expect the House of Representatives to vote against NEA taxpayer funding any day now. Praise God. But the Senate will be our big challenge. Now is your opportunity to stop taxpayer funding of this filth. Write your senators today, urging them to join with the other legislators to protect our children and grandchildren and preserve this nation's moral heritage by voting to defund the NEA entirely.

MARION CARLSON

Cape Girardeau