Why We Fight Art

People for the American Way is releasing a study this week of 204 "challenges to artistic free expression" during 1992-93. These include attempts to remove paintings from exhibitions, stop productions of plays, revoke arts funding and the like. Here is a partial breakdown of the cataloged objections (categories may overlap):

--Nudity and/or sexual content 50%

--Offensive/inappropriate political content 31%

--Antireligious content 16%

--Homosexual content 13%

--Racist/ethnically insensitive content 7%

--Sexually harassing content 6%

--Aesthetically unpleasing/ugly 1.5%