Sad Circus Elephant to Join DC's 'Party Animals'
Billie
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A weeping circus elephant will join a "Party Animals"
public street art exhibition in the U.S. capital after a judge on Tuesday
ordered organizers to honor the free speech rights of the sculpture's animal
rights sponsors.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Washington's Commission on the
Arts and Humanities clashed over the anti-circus message of PETA's pachyderm,
decked out in performance finery with a tear rolling down its cheek.
In a play on the age-old circus announcement, the blanket on its back reads,
"The Circus Is Coming, See SHACKLES, BULLHOOKS, LONELINESS, All Under The 'Big
Top'."
PETA, which alleges that circuses routinely mistreat and abuse the elephants
and other animals in their care, plans to attach a shackle to the creature's
leg to underscore its message once it is installed in a prominent location.
"We know that circuses do everything they can do in order to keep the suffering
of animals hidden and we were certainly determined not to let the arts
commission do the same thing to our elephant," said PETA legal counsel Matthew
Penzer.
America's best known circus, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, rejects
such accusations, saying their animals are well cared for as an integral and
beloved part of the performing "family."
The commission in May unveiled a sculpture menagerie of some 200 fantastically
decorated donkeys and elephants -- animals that serve as the mascots for the
Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.
Despite the political allusions, the arts body says the exhibition, modeled on
similar displays featuring cows, pigs and fish in other cities, was meant only
to boost tourism and promote public art.
"We think the party animals display is a whimsical fun art display, not a forum
for political speech," said Peter LaVallee, a spokesman for the city's legal
department. "It was not intended to convey any political message."
As with most things in Washington, however, politics quickly became an issue as
the Green Party filed an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit in March against the
project, which it said unfairly promoted only the two biggest political
parties.
The arts body also balked at the original circus elephant design by 'New
Yorker' magazine artist Harry Bliss that PETA submitted.
It showed people pointing and smiling as a man with a hammer and nails tacked a
poster with the same anti-circus message onto the skin of a cowed, unhappy
elephant.
But Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court in Washington earlier this
month ruled that the commission had ignored its own standards in accepting
other designs incorporating various messages.
One elephant on display is decorated like a Monopoly game board and called
GOPoly -- a play on the initials of the Grand Old Party, as the Republican
Party is sometimes known.
The mosaic design of another elephant incorporates a panel inscribed "Just Say
No to Ivory."
On Tuesday, Leon rejected the arts commission's requests to reconsider his
earlier ruling and bar the installation of "Ella PhantzPeril" pending further
appeal. He ordered the two sides to agree on an exhibition site for it by noon
on Wednesday.
"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP. Park elsewhere!"
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