By Gary Isbell
On November 4, a public square rosary rally of victory and thanksgiving was held near the place where a huge porno-sculpture was to be placed. The public display of a naked female figure that towers four-stories high was scheduled to be displayed on the Mall in Washington, D.C., for four months starting in November. That moral disaster was averted when the National Park Service denied a permit to the sponsoring organization.
The Return to Order campaign organized a petition signed by tens of thousands. It was addressed to the National Park Service asking that a permit be denied. Just days before a protest near the site was to be organized, the Park Service announced that the permit had been denied based on possible damage to park property caused by the assembling of the huge obscene structure.
The protest rally then became a rally of thanksgiving for the victory over those who would turn the nation’s most popular public space into an occasion of sin. With 24 million people including many young children visiting the Mall each year, few places are comparable in terms of exposure to the public.
Joining the rally were volunteers from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and students from the St. Louis de Montfort Academy. Local friends and supporters also participated.
“We may have won this battle,” said Return to Order author John Horvat. “However, the war is not over. We can expect the other side to try again.”
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The organizers of the display, “Catharsis on the Mall,” are appealing the decision. They had hoped to have the porno-sculpture installed in time for its November 7-11 Woodstock-like event. With the denial, they are now petitioning to install a two-story screen from which they can project images similar to the sculpture over the course of the weekend.
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In addition to the screen, the organizers are also hoping their appeal will allow them to install the denied statue on the Mall in time for the March for Woman on January 21.
The massive porno-sculpture called “R-Evolution” was created for the Burning Man festival in 2015 by Marco Cochrane.
Burning Man is an annual everything-goes festival outside Reno, Nev., that gathers together tens of thousands of people in an atmosphere of nudity, drugs and promiscuity. The culmination of the clothing optional event is the burning of a giant man figure as a symbolic gesture (or catharsis) of renewal and tension release.
Fully expecting the Park Service to cave in to political pressure, Return to Order will organizing further campaigns to prevent the placement of the statue in January.
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To protest against the current plan to project this image and others on its two-story screen, click here.