Debate Over Censorship of the Arts

The core of Hugh Hewitt’s article (“Thunder From Right on Endowment for Arts Is So Much Hot Air,” Opinion, Sept. 2) on proposals to abolish or restrict the NEA, is an ad hominem fallacy, i.e., attacking those who support abolition or restrictions rather than attacking their arguments. While characterizing them as “mean-spirited,” “a lynch mob,” “contemptuous of diversity,” and “absolutist,” he does not respond to their substantive arguments.

Also, the words “diversity” and “minorities” for him seem to be magic talismans. Yet can it be that in the names of diversity and minorities, anything and everything should be publicly funded? Furthermore, public funds, of course, go to diverse groups, yet these are not unconditional grants. Most certainly, the Pope, in commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, established certain conditions.

ROBERT E. HAYES

Garden Grove