THE WORST OF 2010

It's awards season, and on this first Sabbath Day of the new year we're not honoring the heroes of religious artistic expression but the worst villains of 2010 with the new Religious Arts Censorship Awards (RACA). This lowly award recognizes the year's worst censors of religious artistic expression.

Why create such an award category? Because we want to bring a much needed light of faith to stories that would otherwise be forgotten as purely culture wars between good religious people vs. bad non-religious artists. The five RACA's will be presented this afternoon in Cincinnati, Ohio, a city well-known for censorship and the home of a leading nominee, House Speaker to-be John Boehner. The 2010 set of winners of the lowly RACA are:

• Pontius Pilot Award:
  Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor for reigniting the culture wars by calling for the closing of a Smithsonian exhibit based on their religious views without even seeing the exhibit.
• Judas Iscariot Award:
  Director of Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Dr. Martin Sullivan for caving in to political pressure and censoring a religious work by a gay American artist.
• Goliath Award:
  Montana truck driver Kathleen Folden for the destruction of artwork by Professor Enrique Chagoya.
• King Herod's Award:
  Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki for issuing a death threat on an American artist for creating Draw Mohammad Day.

In contrast to this lowly RACA, separately each Fall the readers of "God's Art Museum" vote to honor an artist each for excellence with its Gammy Prize. The Gammy Prize, acknowledges the very highest levels of achievement in promoting dialogue in America about excellence in religious & spiritual art. Further details on the work of Alpha Omega Arts can be viewed online at the website: http://www.alphaomegaarts.com/