US Merchant Marine Academy Succumbs to Anti-Religious Bigot Demands Regarding Jesus Painting

Recently, the newly installed superintendent at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) was challenged by the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an anti-Christian organization that roams the country committed to ridding the public square of all religious expression. The most recent target was a large painting hanging in Wiley Hall at the USMMA in Kings Point, New York.

The 10 ft. by 19 ft. painting was painted in 1944 and depicts a number of merchant seamen adrift in a lifeboat on the high seas, presumably after their ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Indian Ocean, with Jesus standing nearby. The painting was brought to the USMMA in 1947 and had hung undisturbed in the Elliot M. See conference room in Wiley Hall up until its discovery by the MRFF this year.

All art affects people differently. When MRFF and its clients viewed the painting, they reacted negatively. They perceived that the painting promoted “Christian domination, triumphalism, and exceptionalism,” “illustrat[ed] the supremacy of Jesus Christ,” and displayed “sectarian Christian supremacy.” These perceptions reflect an underlying animus by MRFF and many of its members against religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular.

In response to MRFF’s demand to remove the painting, the new USMMA superintendent quickly responded by thanking MRFF for bringing the situation to her attention and saying that she had ordered that curtains be erected to block the view of the painting by anyone in the conference room who did not desire to view the painting. Now, the USMMA has gone a step further, announcing that the room will not be used for official business until the painting can be moved.

We responded by sending a legal letter to the superintendent countering MRFF’s claims. We noted that it was her action to cover the painting that actually violated the Constitution by favoring secular expression over religious expression. Government officials must neither favor nor disfavor religion. By hiding a painting with a religious theme behind curtains, she failed the neutrality test. We also pointed out that MRFF gave her faulty advice about what the Constitution requires regarding religious expression in the public sphere.

For over 75 years, people who have seen this painting at the USMMA have reacted positively. We believe that the artist included “[t]he presence of Jesus . . . to reflect the mariners’ hope of being rescued from their situation and the faith that sustained them through their ordeal.” In our view, the inclusion of Jesus also reflected the faith of many merchant mariners who found themselves in similar peril during the Second World War, and it honored and acknowledged the courage and hope of countless merchantmen in perilous situations on the high seas.

Because the law does not support MRFF’s view, we pointed out in our legal letter to the USMMA superintendent where MRFF went astray in its legal analysis and advice, and we laid out the law for her and for USMMA attorneys to check out for themselves. We also noted that any fear that an onlooker might misconstrue the presence of the painting with Jesus as constituting the USMMA’s endorsement of religion, in general, or Christianity, in particular, could be remedied by posting a disclaimer to that effect near the painting. We informed her that hiding the painting because of its religious content is not a constitutionally permissible response and needs to be rectified.