Fear art, fear the body.

Conservatives are having a fit because the Seattle Art Museum is using a million-dollar bequest (gasp: from a gay man!) to commission a sculpture of a nude man and a boy. Called "Father and Son," the work will be a fountain sculpture by 94-year old artist Louise Bourgeois in which each figure will alternately be masked by a spray of water. But conservatives, outraged at what they say is thinly veiled pedophilia, seemingly can't even get the basic facts right: some, writes Robert Jamieson Jr, are incorrectly attacking an artist they surmise is gay, male, and Latino—Luis Bourgeois. SAM chief curator Lisa Corrin says Bourgeois, a married French woman and legendary artist, has inverted the familiar mother-child theme of classical art. She adds, "Nudity in this work is a symbol of emotional nakedness; the two figures stand before each other but cannot touch; they try to see each other, but never see eye to eye; they are separated by bell jars of cascading water, which prevent any contact between them."

Of the work, to be included in SAM's new Olympic Sculpture Park opening next year, conservative critics call it "blatant phallic symbolism." Rev. Joseph Fuiten, who apparently never showered in the Y locker room after family swim, chides, "My father never approached me naked."