The April cover of the New Yorker magazine showed a crucified Easter Bunny in a business suit superimposed on an IRS tax form. According to the artist, Art Spiegelman, the drawing was meant to show how conservatives view tax cuts as an “article of faith.”
When Catholic League president William Donohue was contacted at home by a reporter for the New York Post about this incident, he thought that the few critical comments he would offer would have no more effect than being cited once or twice in the next day’s paper. As it turned out, all the major TV and radio shows picked up on the subject immediately. Indeed, the Catholic League’s response was discussed on radio as far away as Australia.
“For the New Yorker to lambaste conservatives for treating tax cuts as a sacred entity is one thing,” the League said, “but it is quite another to play fast and loose with Christian symbols.” Taking note of its timing during Holy Week, the League also stated that the literary magazine “could have engaged in legitimate criticism of those pundits who treat tax cuts reverentially without simultaneously offending Christians. That it chose not to do so shows not only poor taste, it shows flat disregard for the sensibilities of Christians.”
The Catholic League is grateful for the unsolicited support that it received on this issue from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Trashing the religious symbols of any religion is an outrage, and it is particularly insulting when it happens at a time considered sacred by the offended party.
