Robert Anton Wilson used to say the worst thing about being an atheist is what do you say during sex, "Oh random chance, oh random chance."??
Now it appears the British government is ready to solve this problem, at least in part, when it repeals the blasphemy laws and allows the release of "Jesus porn"
A landmark decision to ban a film showing Christ being caressed on the cross on the grounds that it was blasphemous could be reversed after almost 20 years.
The 1989 ruling by the British Board of Film Classification to refuse a release licence for Visions of Ecstasy, a low- budget film depicting the 16th-century Spanish mystic St Teresa of Avila caressing the body of Jesus on the cross provoked a national furore.
While the film's director, Nigel Wingrove, believed he was making art, the board, under its heavily censorious director James Ferman, took a different view and said its mix of pornography and religion risked upsetting the Anglican Church. Now, however, in a sign that Britain's social mores have moved on, Craig Lapper, of the board's examining body, has invited Wingrove to resubmit the film for classification.
The invitation comes ahead of the repeal in June of the blasphemy law, which has long been a source of anger for those working in the creative industries who complain it is an archaic piece of legislation that stifles art.
(snip)
Wingrove, now a distributor of horror movies, said the suggestion he should resubmit his most notorious work had come 'completely out of the blue' and that he was in two minds about whether to agree. 'If I made the film now I would make it very differently,' he said. 'I was exploring areas of dark eroticism, but I had worked chiefly in prints, not films. People say I should put it out, but on a personal level I have reservations. If I did release it, I would need to put it into context and perhaps release a documentary to accompany it.'
(snip)
It would not just be anti-censorship campaigners who would welcome the film's release. 'I was in Soho recently and bumped into the guy who played Jesus,' Wingrove said. 'He said he'd never seen the film and asked if he could have a copy.'




















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