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Florida City Bans Christian Paintings
A central Florida artist has been told his childhood memories, depicted in paintings, are "too religious” to be displayed in his hometown. Paintings by artist Lloyd Marcus have been banned from being exhibited during a Black History Month display in Deltona, Fla., an Orlando suburb, because some of the paintings contain "Christian symbols” that reflect the artist's memories of his childhood at his dad's storefront church. [Editor's Note: You can view Lloyd Marcus' "controversial" paintings by Clicking here now.] Marcus says the Christian symbols have nothing to do with the painting's subjects, but he is "up in arms” over what he views as another absurd episode in the war against Christianity. "People need to know how bizarre things have gotten," Marcus told NewsMax.com in an exclusive interview. "It would be different if I had a picture of Jesus, for example, but now it's gotten so bad the very hint of anything Christian is banned from the public square.
Story Continues Below "This whole anti-Christianity movement has just gotten way out of hand,” Marcus continued. "It's hidden under the radar and people don't know about it. When this happened to me I thought, ‘Wow,’ I don't think people realize how bad it's gotten." Marcus, who is black, heads the Deltona Art and Historical Center. He was asked by Deltona city officials to submit some of his works for display in the city's Black History Month artistic tribute. The city's public relations representative chose three of his works. Marcus described the paintings, which were from a published series titled, "STOREFRONTS: Fond memories of growing up in my minister dad's east Baltimore church.” One of the paintings, titled "The Christmas Basket,” features three black people: a minister, a woman and another man wearing a baseball cap which reads "I Love Jesus.” The trio is shown delivering a basket of food to a poor single mother with her arm around her son standing beside her and a baby in her other arm. Another painting is titled, "3 AM,” which features an elderly black couple looking down from their second floor bedroom window above a storefront church. They see, standing in the rain, a battered white woman with a black eye and two little children looking up at them. The clock on the bedroom dresser reads 3 AM. A third painting shows a New Orleans funeral procession celebrated by blacks living in that city. "I would hardly call these paintings ‘in your face religious,’” Marcus told NewsMax.com. "We’re asked to tolerate every other religion. Meanwhile, any hint of Christianity is banned from the public square.”
The seemingly sweet, innocuous paintings drew the ire of Deltona's acting city manager, Roland Blossom. He told the Daytona Beach News-Journal he could not tolerate a mingling of church and state, even if the only evidence is a partial Bible lying on a table and a church sign, as in the "3 AM” painting. "I saw the word 'Jesus' and the Holy Bible just sort of thrown in the painting," Blossom told the News-Journal. "What that forces anybody to do because this display is in a government building, they think this government is advocating in favor of one religion over another."
Marcus is a reluctant crusader, but is determined to use this incident as a wake-up call to alert the public about how far the war on Christianity and religion has gone. "I am not angry at Deltona City Hall," he said. "The anti-Christianity movement speaks loudly and carries a big stick. However, this incident confirms that things have gotten out of hand. It is time for Christians, in a Godly way, to fight back. "I hate doing this because Deltona has gotten a lot of negative publicity with the hurricanes and the mass murders here that made the national news, and I love the town," he explained. "The last thing I want to do is bring Deltona more negative publicity, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought this is patently wrong and people need to know.” Marcus thinks the Deltona situation is just a localized version of a disturbing trend to ban God from the public square, threatening to make the United States a nation with "freedom from religion,” rather than a country founded on "freedom of religion.” The decision may also be damaging, Marcus says, to the pride of African-Americans who worship regularly and joyfully, many of whom fought hard for the right just to be recognized as members of proper society. "This is black history month,” Marcus said. "I was raised in a storefront church in Baltimore, Maryland, and these are simply paintings from my childhood. I didn't paint them with the intention of selling religion. After all, they came to me. They [Deltona city officials] picked them on Friday and then they called me on Monday and said they had to take two of them down because of religious content. "I was really upset and angry because when you look at those paintings it's a black history month display and they have good positive black role model messages but because there's a bible on the nightstand or somebody wearing an I love Jesus baseball cap they can't be shown in a public building. That's crazy. "Maybe this will be a wake-up call that will get Christians to say 'We're mad as hell and we're not going go take it anymore.' " Marcus attributed the city's action to fear. "The ACLU has gotten everybody so terrified that the city manager probably figured that, rather than going with the threat of a lawsuit, let's just take these paintings down,” he told NewsMax.com. "It's time for people to say 'enough is enough!' Lloyd Marcus' "controversial" paintings may be viewed at his Web site, www.lloydmarcus.net or by Clicking Here Now.]
Editor's note:
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