Good and Bad News for the Arts Scene : A Courageous Stand; Political Posturing by Rohrabacher, Costa Mesa City Council

Orange County has put itself in the middle of the controversy over arts funding by the National Endowment for the Arts. That’s good and bad news.

The good news: the Art Institute of Southern California in Laguna Beach courageously turned down a $15,000 grant rather than sign the NEA-mandated anti-obscenity certification required of 1990 recipients. While a few recipients across the nation have turned down grants on similar grounds--notably the New York Shakespeare Festival--the Art Institute is one of the smallest entities to take that stand.

Then there’s the bad news: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) and the Costa Mesa City Council.

Rohrabacher is the congressman who has joined hands with Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in the charge against the NEA. Under pressure drummed up by them over the works of Robert Mapplethorpe, the NEA finally adopted the anti-obscenity clause.

As for the Costa Mesa City Council, it, for no reason that was discernible, decided to step into the NEA mess by adopting its own law barring the use of city money for “obscene matters” or for religious or political activity. The law is probably meaningless because state and federal laws governing censorship likely will supersede the ordinance, but the restrictions leave the door open for prior restraint of arts and artists.

Recently, about 50 Orange County arts advocates made fun of the City Council by symbolically stripping the city’s self-proclaimed status as Orange County’s City of the Arts. The city had elevated itself to that high status six years ago when it was chosen as the home of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The protesters also donned masks of Mayor Peter F. Buffa to suggest that the city was trying to impose “homogeneous cultural standards upon the entire community.”

That would be bad news, indeed.