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| Andres Serrano - "Heaven and Hell" |
Infamous Catholic Party media ho and gadfly Bill Donohue and a gang of liquored up middle aged, some closeted, Irish Catholic types tried to mob their way into a peaceful art exhibit on W 57 Street in midtown Manhattan recently.
The object of their media publicity quest was a rather outdated piece of decorative art “Immersion” by New York Artist Andres Serrano. Apparently the twenty fifth anniversary showing of a commodity piece of decorative art got the Friday Irish Watering Hole guys over at Rosie O’Grady’s to get upset that somebody under the first amendment could portray the image, a photograph in fact, of a crucifix in a jar of the artist’s urine and call it art.
And all within walking and drinking distance of his bar and his Eminence’s Pink Palace Bishop’s Townhouse over by St. Pat’s Cathedral. It was enough to make a grown drunk divorced Irish Catholic man like poor sensitive Bill Donohue to cry.
Gallery owners were expecting a protest on Thursday night and were
relieved when only about 30 people turned up, Ms. von Mueffling said. Things
became heated, she said, when the group tried to push pass the four guards at
the entry. She said that the gallery called the police, who dispersed the
protesters.
Mr. Donohue called that version of events an “out-and-out lie.”
“We didn’t push past anybody,” he said. “There were no police
there, none at all.”
Only he was blocked from entering, Mr. Donohue said. He left and
went with some friends to Rosie O’Grady’s, a nearby bar.
Detective Marc Nell, a spokesman for the New York City Police
Department, said that officers were aware that a protest was going on and went
by twice to check, but not in response to a call. During the first visit in the
evening, at 6:22 p.m., “there was no interaction with the protesters,”
Detective Nell said. He added: “Police talked to security and security said
everything was fine.”
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