Actor Heston Comes to Defense of Arts, Humanities Agencies

A House panel burst into applause Tuesday after actor Charlton Heston recited Shakespeare while asking lawmakers to spare two government grant-making agencies supporting the arts and the humanities from efforts to shut them down.

“Art is good for the soul,” Heston intoned during remarks to a House Appropriations subcommittee.

Heston had a very different act to follow. Two former chairmen of the National Endowment for the Humanities--William J. Bennett and Lynne V. Cheney--had urged congressmen to eliminate that agency along with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Some members of Congress’ new Republican majority have said the endowments serve no legitimate government function. Some also have been offended at some of the work financed in part by NEA or NEH grants.

The NEA’s budget is $167 million, while the NEH’s is $177 million.

In recent years, the NEA has been battered by controversies over public funding of homo-erotic art, a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine and an artist who smears chocolate on her body.

“Both endowments have made mistakes, often grievous mistakes,” Heston said. “Some of the grants have been simply indefensible. . . . But this does not, in my view, lead to the conclusion that the endowments should be defunded.”

But Heston also assured subcommittee members that he was happy to see congressional Republicans in control for the first time in 40 years.

“May I congratulate you on the revolution. I’m proud to be a good foot soldier in your battles,” said Heston, who is frequently a spokesman for conservative causes and groups.

Bennett and Cheney said both agencies have been compromised by political correctness and intellectual corruption. The agencies are perpetuating what Bennett and Cheney said they believe to be a perverse turn in the quality of today’s art and scholarship.

“The humanities--like the arts--have become highly politicized,” Cheney said. “Many academics and artists now see their purpose not as revealing truth or beauty, but as achieving social and political transformation.”