Lady Gaga vs. the Bible: An Obscene-Off

Lady Gaga will perform in the Philippines, but not if some bigots can help it. Biblemode Youth Philippines has gone on Bible Mode, calling for the blasphemous concert to be canceled. Their protest leader, former Congressman Benny Abante, threatened to file a lawsuit if she sings Judas, a performance protesters consider obscene, and therefore, illegal.

Penal Censorship

Former Manila Mayor Jose Atienza agrees, saying that such obscenity is punishable by six months to six years in prison under the Revised Penal Code. According to Article 201 which was also used against Mideo Cruzs Jesus-Penis-Juxtaposition in Polyteismo obscenity applies to immoral displays that

(1) glorify criminals or condone crimes;

(2) serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography;

(3) offend any race or religion;

(4) tend to abet traffic in and use of prohibited drugs; and

(5) are contrary to law, public order, morals, good customs, established policies, lawful orders, decrees and edicts.

Judas vs. Jesus

The music video of Judas depicts Jesus and his disciples as! a motor cycle gang and tells the story of Jesus betrayal, with Lady Gaga playing the role of Jesus girlfriend, who is torn between her loyalty to Jesus and her love for Judas.

Out of the 5 criteria for obscenity, Judas is guilty by my judgment of just one: (3) offending any race or religion. (1) doesnt count (unless the motorcycle gang Jesus belonged to was a criminal one). Nor does (2) because beyond the stunts and gimmicks, many people actually like her music. (4) is arguable but unlikely. And (5) refers to laws, public order, and other supposedly non-sectarian rules not the doctrines and opinions of a single sect or religion.

Fans vs. Fanatics

Lady Gaga is no stranger to such controversy South Koreans protested to prevent infecting the youth with homosexuality and pornography, and in Indonesia, the Islamic Defenders Front said they were ready to die to stop the concert.

But should the concert be canceled like in Indonesia or censored like what could happen here its not Lady Gaga wholl be affected most its the fans. The right to freedom of expression implies the right to freely access artistic expressions in their uncensored form. To defend their right to enjoy an artist they admire and to protect the ideals of free speech in general Lady Gagas fans should counter-protest, and Im suggesting this is how they do it.

Gaga vs. Bible

They should file a case against Biblemode Youth Philippines for giving the youth access to the most obscene artistic expression ever made: the Bible. Compared to the Bible, a Lady Gaga concert looks like an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. No one will dispute this, at least not anyone who has read the Bible cover to cover, not just homily material. The Bible is so obscene that other than criterion (4), it is guilty of violating criteria (1), (3), and (5) many times over, and of (2) as well unless you consider being terrified! of God as a valid purpose.

The Bible is full of obscenity, filled with verses and verses not only of sex and violence, but every form of injustice, intolerance, and incitement of hatred against women, LGBTs, and even children.

I know many of you wont read the Bible especially if youre a Bible-thumping Christian like Manny Pacquiao so Ill list just one example for each criterion of obscenity (except the fourth) to prove that more than Lady Gaga, the Bible is deserving of censorship, if not banning.

(1) glorify criminals or condone crimes

The Bible has many graphic stories that depict and even condone slavery, murder, genocide, torture, infanticide, and other atrocities that any non-psychopathic person would consider criminal. Heres one.

To gain Sauls approval, not to mention his daughter, Michal, David and his men not only killed a hundred Philistines, they also performed postmortem circumcisions, offering the Philistine foreskins the 100 they individually counted as bride price.

(2) serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography

Banging on a door, some wi cked men wanted to gang rape a man, who was a guest in the house. The hospitable homeowner offered his own daughter and the guests concubine to be gang raped instead.

The wicked men didnt agree, so the homeowner pushed the concubine out from the house into the wicked men. Gang rape ensues. The next morning the homeowner, finding the concubine dead, did the sensible thing and chopped up her body, limb from limb, into twelve parts before mailing them to all the areas of Israel.

Does the story have any other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography? And even if this did teach some moral lesson (pray tell, what?), the violence is just too gratuitous for an allegory.

(3) offend any race or religion and (5) are contrary to law, public order, morals, good customs, established policies, lawful orders, decrees and edicts.

God hates the Midianites because they worship Baal of Peor. He told Moses to kill all Midianite leaders, or else, hell keep punishing them with a plague. So Moses ordered Israels judges to kill Israelites who converted to Baal worship.

One day, an Israelite man brought a Midianite woman into camp. Phinehas, not a judge, followed the couple into their tent. As they were having interracial interreligion sex, Phinehas thrust a sphere through both of their bodies. (Talk about double penetration.) For taking things into his own hands instead of letting the state (judges) enforce the law, God rewarded Phinehas and stopped His plague.

Child Pornography

Any one of these stories depicts something more immoral than any stunt Lady Gaga could pull, and this is but a small sample of similar stories scattered in both the Old and New Testament. Whats worse, the Bible does more than depict immorality it condones and even justifies it.

Yet with all the pornography and gratuitous violence in the Bible, its probably the easiest book for anyone to! access children included. (Its a good thing children generally think the Bible is boring. That old copy at home wont be so dusty if the children knew there was enough sex and gore in it to make most video games dull in comparison.)

Some may argue that the stories arent so bad when read in context. But imagine what would happen if a fundamentalist studio were to show a movie depicting these scenes. Would it get a PG rating from the MTRCB? Would it be any different if there was narration that put the scenes into context? And what difference does putting it in book form make? Didnt fundamentalist groups also call for the censorship of Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, and the novels of Jose Rizal?

Id be interested to see the outcome of such a case should Lady Gaga fans follow my suggestion. If they dont, maybe its FF that should challenge the Bibles immunity to censorship. In any case, somebody should do it. Think of the children.