COMMENTARY : Orange County Voices : Storm of Controversy Over Public Funding Blows Ill for Arts : Insistence that tax dollars support only clean, wholesome artworks is bigotry. The Costa Mesa tempest over ‘Sister Mary’ exemplifies the intolerance.

The arts in America are riding out a storm. Scientists have discovered that the mere beating of insect wings can affect global weather patterns; much in the same way the beating of a few conservative breasts in this country has given rise, over the past 18 months, to a hurricane of controversy concerning government funding of the arts. Now some of the wind seems to be blowing through the city of Costa Mesa.

From one point of view, the storm is a tempest in a teapot. The proposed $175-million budget for the National Endowment for the Arts in fiscal 1991 represents a minuscule portion of the national budget: It wouldn’t absorb the smallest drop of the savings-and-loan red ink. The handful of change exacted from each taxpayer to fund the NEA for a year wouldn’t buy a ballpark hot dog. Funding for the arts on a local level is similarly negligible in proportion to overall spending.

Still, over the years public funding for the arts has played an important role in promoting the most innovative, adventurous new work--the kind of work that can’t survive without sponsorship--as well as underwriting hundreds of community-oriented arts programs. Such funding has led the way in making ours the most culturally vibrant era in American history, enabling our arts to investigate, elevate and celebrate our national spirit.

When I think about what an extraordinary return we taxpayers have gotten on our small investment in the arts, I’m astonished all over again at the storm that now threatens the principle of public arts funding in our own community and across America.

It makes me wonder what motivates those who have mounted the attack. I’ll go so far as to suggest that it’s really a kind of bigotry. My dictionary defines bigot as a person who holds blindly to a particular creed or opinion; a narrow-minded, intolerant person.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of those who insist that certain works of art supported by government grants are offensive to their eyes. They make the mistake, however, of judging these works solely on the basis of subject matter, when art through the ages has amply demonstrated that any aspect of human experience can be appropriate subject matter for artistic exploration. (Oedipus Rex, for example, is about incest and patricide.) They compound the mistake by assuming that their interpretation of the subject matter is absolute. But these are errors of ignorance rather than malice.

On the other hand, I also do not doubt the integrity and good sense of the arts experts who chose to bestow grants to those controversial artworks in the first place. Both points of view are valid. Art is different things to different people; as is beauty; as is even truth.

That’s exactly why I suggest that those who insist on their definition of art as the only valid one are narrow-minded and intolerant. They are bigots. They cling tenaciously to their personal moral and religious creeds, attempting to impose them on everyone and to dismiss artistic considerations altogether.

These bigots insist that our tax dollars should only support clean, wholesome, unthreatening works of art. They refuse to consider the idea that art, by its nature, ought to be provocative rather than placating; eye-opening rather than eye-soothing; not just an upholder but also a challenger of traditional values.

America was founded in direct opposition to the religious bigotry that forced our Pilgrims out of Europe; it was founded in a spirit that refused to accept prevailing conventions. America’s art needs to breathe that spirit and carry it forward and not have it suffocated by a new brand of religious bigotry.

Right now, as the status of the arts at the national level seems to be improving slightly (under the notable leadership of that staunch conservative, Orrin G. Hatch), the City Council of Costa Mesa is jumping through hoops at the bark of a couple of self-appointed guardians of morality. Just how much of a storm these few breast-beaters will manage to kick up remains to be seen.

For the record it should be noted that the latest object of their wrath, a play called “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You,” by Christopher Durang, has been performed to the intense amusement of audiences across the country, including a great many Catholics. Its spirit is unabashedly satirical, and its point of view about certain aspects of the Catholic educational system is clearly antagonistic. Durang himself went to Catholic schools, and looks back on the experience with extreme distaste; in his play he turns his remembered pain and anger into laughter.

A key attribute of the American character is our ability to maintain a sense of humor about ourselves. But bigots are known for their lack of humor, and our local bigots apparently tremble for the reputation and well-being of the Catholic Church. They are clamoring to have the production of Durang’s play closed, or at least to have its city funding withdrawn, in a blatant attempt to shut Durang up, to curtail his freedom of speech.

No one should make the mistake of dismissing these extremists. There’s a real danger that their effort to influence the City Council could succeed, unless more sensible citizens speak up. Those who value freedom of expression as one of America’s priceless rights should take action to protect that freedom in our own back yard.

I certainly hope that wiser, more tolerant minds will prevail; and that sooner rather than later, the storm that threatens the arts both locally and nationally will blow itself out.